Cirrus Logic Inc, Fremont, California has announced its new Laguna3D graphics chip for more impressive personal computer games performance, but although Creative Labs Inc is using the chip elsewhere, it claims to have a better one for personal computer games. Cirrus Logic made the announcement of the Laguna chip last week which it said is designed to give a near photo- realistic feel to three-dimensional interactive entertainment by increasing the number of polygons that can be used in a frame. This enables greater three-dimensional graphics detail to be included in video games and means the chip is able to handle more complex texture maps. Although Creative is using Laguna for its new Graphics Blaster MA334 64-bit graphics accelerator, its 3D Blaster PCI for three-dimensional games play prefers the Verite three-dimensional graphics chip from Mountain View, California- based Rendition Inc. The Laguna, Creative says, is more suitable for general-purpose applications. Laguna3D fits the more sober corporate area than personal computer games, said Chris Boyce, brand manager, video and graphics at Creative Labs. The Laguna3D chip does the front end polygon set-up on the CPU, whereas the Rendition chip in 3D Blaster renders on the graphics chip, making Rendition’s chip faster and more suitable for personal computer games than Laguna, he explained. Cirrus is keen not to contradict Creative Labs outright, but this confuses its overall strategy for Laguna. Its explanation for the discrepancy is that Laguna is more cost-effective using the Pentium processor for polygon set up than on the graphics chip, said Chris Russell, European director at Cirrus, although the saving is marginal. Back-end rendering of images is data-intensive and that is where the Laguna3D chip comes in. If the Laguna is combined with a Pentium processor, then it is the most cost-effective [when compared with a chip that does not do the polygon set up on the CPU]. The mass market has Pentium-based machines already, so it is most cost- effective for the Laguna graphics chip to use the Pentium for the polygon set-up, he added. The Laguna chips are designed around the Microsoft Direct 3D application programming interface standard for real-time three-dimensional graphics. The next product in the family, the Laguna3D-AGP accelerator, will add support for Intel Corp’s new Accelerated Graphics Port. Cirrus said that it cannot yet announce which computer-manufacturing OEM customers will be taking the chip. The Laguna3D is shipping at $29.50 when you order 10,000 or more. The Laguna3D-AGP accelerator is due to sample this quarter with production volume next quarter. In addition, Cirrus has announced a new range of audio chips using the Sound Retrieval System from SRS Labs Inc and QSound, taking advantage of an algorithm that will give games the impression of three-dimensional sound.
