Multimedia graphics accelerator chip designer Nvidia Corp is backing Intel Corp’s efforts to bring real-time three-dimensional personal computer software to the mass market with the announcement of its support for Intel’s Accelerated Graphics Port (CI No 2,958) in its forthcoming products. Nvidia says it will unveil its third generation product in the early summer, and says it will be the industry’s first 3D multimedia accelerator to bring both two-dimensional and three-dimensional performance and advanced video features to Intel’s AGP Accelerated Graphics Port systems. Nvidia says it is targeting the performance sector with its new product. To make real-time 3D graphics feasible on a personal computer needs very fast processors, high performance 3D processing engines and, according to Nvidia, a specially designed architecture to sustain the performance. The Sunnyvale, California company says Intel’s Pentium II performance will enable increased realism, and its AGP bus bandwidth will dramatically increase geometry throughput. Nvidia says it will provide the new architecture with its next generation product, which deploys 3.5 million transistors and 20bn operations per second dedicated to 3D graphics. It reckons this, combined with the Intel technology will take 3D graphics to a stunning new level. Jen-Hsun Huang, Nvidia’s president and chief executive, says the combined products will give the company a major boost towards our goal of bringing Computer Generated Reality to the mass market.
