With Intel Corp rallying together applications developers to support the forthcoming Pentium III Katmai graphics instructions for a preview at its Santa Clara headquarters on Wednesday February 17th, Advanced Micro Devices Inc must be feeling the pressure somewhat. Although AMD had a six months lead in the market with its 3Dnow! multimedia instruction set, itÆs inevitable that support draining away as the Intel machine ramps up. But yesterday, AMD gathered together a show of support from the PC entertainment industry to prove that all is not lost. It won endorsements from 3DO Inc, Accolade Inc, Activision Inc, Criterion Studios, Digital Anvil Inc, Eidos Plc, GT Interactive Software Corp, Gremlin Interactive Ltd, iD Software, Interplay Entertainment Corp, Psygnosis Ltd and Rage Software Inc, who all announced their formal plans to support, or continue to support, 3Dnow! Between them, the twelve are promising to deliver ôa substantial number of titlesö that will offer optimized performance when run on 3Dnow! enabled processors, such as the AMD K6-2, K6-III or K7. Those future titles include Tomb Raider II, Quake III Arena, Daikatana, Loose Cannon, Drakken, Striker, Slave Zero, Messiah, Duke Nukem Forever and Descent3. AMD claims to have an installed base of over 8.5m 3Dnow!-enabled processors on the market, and says it expects the number to be up to 30m by the end of the year.
