Rendition (company)

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Rendition, Inc.

Type	Corporation
Founded	1993
Headquarters	Mountain View, CA
Industry	PC Multimedia Products
Website	http://www.rendition.com (closed down)

Rendition was a maker of 3D graphics chipsets in the mid- to late-90's. They were known for products such as the Vérité 1000 and Vérité 2x00 and for being one of the first 3D chipset makers to directly work with Quake developer John Carmack to make a hardware-accelerated version of the game (vQuake). Rendition's major competitor at the time was 3Dfx. Their proprietary rendering API's were Speedy3D (for DOS) and RRedline (for Windows).

1 3D Chipsets
2 Games With Rendition Support
3 Downfall
4 Trivia
5 Competing chipsets
- 5.1 V1000 era
- 5.2 V2x00 era
6 External links

[edit] 3D Chipsets

[edit] Vérité V1000

Sierra's Screamin' 3D. V1000-based

Rendition's V1000 chipset, released in 1996, was one of the first consumer PCI graphics cards to integrate a RISC processor to perform operations independent of the main CPU, in the same way that today's 3D accelerators use more specialized ASICs. V1000 was capable of a wide variety of 3D features, vastly outstripping previous 3D cards such as the Matrox Millennium. The board utilized a 64-bit memory bus to 4 MB of EDO DRAM (up to 400 MB/s transfer rate). The chip included a capable 2D and video accelerator for DOS and Windows with a fast implementation of VESA VBE 2.0 for DOS applications. The V1000 was one of the first consumer 3D accelerator cards truly capable of delivering playable performance with significantly improved quality. It was designed for PCs running Microsoft Windows 3.1, 9x, or NT 4.

id Software, developers of Quake, had this to say in a press release from 1995 by Number Nine Visual Technology regarding their never released V1000-based board:

"We at id have been fans of the Vérité architecture since we first saw the spec, several months back." stated John Carmack, technical director of id Software, Inc., creators of the popular action game DOOM(tm). "Now that we have some experience with the chip, we're even more pleased with it; in fact, it's our clear favorite among 3D accelerators." In discussing the development of their next generation software title QUAKE(tm), John goes on to say "... Vérité will be the premier platform for Quake."

The chip differed from the 3Dfx Voodoo Graphics (its primary rival) in that it had on-board hardware triangle setup. Rendition frequently used this as ammunition against 3Dfx's marketing campaign, because a hardware triangle setup engine somewhat reduced the load placed upon the system's main CPU. Unfortunately V1000 had only a fraction of Voodoo Graphics's performance, because of significantly lower pixel fillrate. Its fillrate was, at best, approximately 25 megapixels per second (a little more than half that of Voodoo Graphics). Limitations of the V1000 hardware also caused z-buffering to significantly impact rendering speed and cut fillrate nearly in half. Nevertheless, V1000 did show promising performance on slower systems because of its ability to offload a bit more computational load from the system's CPU. Because V1000 was a dual-purpose 2D & 3D card, some users also enjoyed the need for only a single video card in a time when PCI slots were few.

An interesting piece of V1000's technology was its use of bus master DMA transfers for data transfer across the PCI bus. This allowed the board to transfer data much more efficiently than with the alternative FIFO mode of the bus. Unfortunately, the immaturity of the PCI bus at the time, and the limited use of busmastering in general in systems of the day, caused DMA bugs to surface with Vérité. If a motherboard chipset wasn't capable of DMA, Verite was forced to operate in FIFO mode and performance dropped dramatically. Additionally, on some motherboards, DMA support was incomplete or improperly implemented and speed was quite poor. Both of these issues combined to cause frequent problems for owners of the V1000. Rendition had a DMA test utility to benchmark a motherboard's support of DMA transfers. Some DOS games with Speedy3D Verite support, such as IndyCar Racing II, offered a mode using DMA and a mode using FIFO, in order to bypass these issues.

While Rendition had tried to craft the V1000 to support many application programming interfaces (APIs), these APIs were in their infancy at the time. For example, Microsoft's Direct3D standard was in rapid development with major changes occurring. V1000 was not optimized for this new Direct3D standard. However, this was more the fault of the API because Direct3D, at the time, lacked support for DMA transfers. The design of V1000, with its RISC core, was one of programmability. Because the GPU was not "hardwired" as ASICs are, the chip could potentially adapt to newer or differing standards than it was initially designed for. Performance limitations, however, inevitably dictated that the chip was not able to grow significantly. OpenGL support, for example, was very limited on V1000.

V1000's 2D performance was sub-par in every way other than its SVGA VESA support (where the RISC core accelerated drawing). On the extreme, in regular VGA resolution or "Mode X", the V1000 performed embarrassingly bad, with older games such as Doom nearly a slideshow even on a Pentium 166 machine (top-of-the-line at the time). A utility was eventually released (called "renutil") that could usually improve this VGA performance by remapping VGA modes to VESA modes, but it did not help "Mode X". Within Windows 95, the V1000 was consistently said to have adequate but unimpressive performance relative to other 2D cards of the era.

The V1000 was fairly popular when it was launched and was featured on several boards, including the Creative Labs 3D Blaster PCI, the Sierra Screamin' 3D, the Canopus Total 3D, and the Intergraph Reactor (later renamed Intense 3D 100). What really put Rendition into the limelight was id Software's port of Quake. vQuake, as it was called, utilized the V1000 processor to render Quake with an image quality far surpassing the original release. Released in time for Christmas 1996, vQuake made a name for Rendition. The port featured bilinear filtering, per-polygon MIP mapping, and edge anti-aliasing.

[edit] Vérité V2x00

Diamond's Stealth II S220. V2100-based

Rendition's 2nd generation architecture consisted of the Vérité V2100 and V2200. The chips were refined versions of the V1000 technology, most notably offering a single-cycle pixel computation (the V1000 took more than a single clock cycle to calculate each pixel). This boosted the chips' fillrate nearly two-fold, and combined with faster memory and a slightly faster core clock rate, offered performance modestly ahead of 3Dfx Voodoo Graphics (the benchmark of the time).

These two chips were identical in every way other than clock speed, with the V2100 being used as a "value"-oriented chip. V2100 was typically clocked at 40-45 MHz, while V2200 was typically seen at 55-60 MHz. The V2100 only saw implementation on one board, the Diamond Multimedia Stealth II S220 PCI with 4 MB SGRAM, which was offered at $100 initially but quickly dropped to $50 due to limited demand. The Stealth II even received a BIOS update later in its life to up the clock speed of the V2100 to the same level as a V2200, as an attempt to boost interest in the card. The V2200 was seen on several cards, most notably the Hercules Thriller 3D offered in both AGP and PCI formats, with 4 MB or 8 MB SGRAM. V2200 offered a 55 megapixel/second fillrate with all of the features expected of a 3D accelerator at the time. Additions to the 2D and video acceleration improved performance and allowed hardware acceleration of DVD playback. The new chips were designed for Microsoft Windows 9x and NT 4.

Rendition and Hercules were at one point cooperating on a "Thriller Conspiracy" project which combined a Fujitsu FXG-1 "Pinolite" geometry processor with a V2200 core to create a gaming graphics card with a full transform and lighting (T&L) engine years before the NVIDIA GeForce 256. This board, designed to further reduce the load placed upon the system's CPU, never made it to market. Rumors spread that it was to be launched during Summer 1998, with a 9 MB board (1 MB for the Pinolite) costing $149 USD. Preliminary benchmarks showed very consistent performance regardless of the system's CPU speed. Unfortunately, by the time it would have launched, there were far more powerful accelerators available, such as NVIDIA's RIVA TNT and 3Dfx's Voodoo 2, that would have significantly overshadowed this board. photo

One of the most peculiar graphics boards ever made was part of the V2200 family. The Jazz Multimedia Outlaw 3D "Bonnie & Clyde" combined both an AGP and a PCI connector on the same board. To use one or the other the user simply flipped the card and metal edge bracket over and plugged it in. photo

[edit] Vérité V3300 RRedline (unreleased)

The V3300 is Rendition's third generation 3D graphics chipset. It would have been manufactured on a 0.35 μm process at IBM and would have replaced the V2200 as Rendition's high-end chipset in early 1999. This chipset was never released. After several delays, Rendition was purchased by Micron Technology and the project was cancelled.

Dual Pixel Engine
- dual-texturing for bilinear and trilinear filtering
- specular highlighting (per vertex), Anti-aliasing
- 3 million triangles/second triangle setup engine, 200 million pixels/sec trilinear fillrate
Dual independent 250 MHz RAMDAC CRT controllers
iDCT transformations & motion compensation support (DVD playback acceleration)
Compatible with 166 MHz SDRAM/SGRAM
128-bit bus architecture
AGP 2X execute mode support

[edit] Vérité V4400E (unreleased)

With their acquisition by Micron back in 1998, Rendition had hoped to take advantage of Micron's embedded DRAM technology. After the setbacks to the V3300 project, and its eventual cancellation due to delays, Rendition came back with promises for a V4400 chip in 2000. This new chip was purported to have 125 million transistors mostly used by 12 MB of embedded memory, a stunning level of complexity for the day. Although this embedded memory design was later used in Micron’s AMD Athlon chipset codenamed "Mamba", the actual graphics chip never surfaced.

Previewed Micron "SuperChip2" motherboard chipset specifications:[1]

180 nm process
DDR SDRAM memory interface
Rendition V4400 graphics core with 4 MB embedded DRAM. Can use system RAM as well.
PCI interface, USB interface, Ultra ATA 66, AC'98 audio controller, IEEE 1394 interface

[edit] Games With Rendition Support

Rendition built a thorough list of supported games by encouraging developers large and small to make use of their free APIs. Rendition originally provided developers with Speedy3D, a DOS-based API, as most game development in 1995-96 was still centered around DOS. Later, Rendition released their Win32 version of the API, branded RRedline. Like 3Dfx, Rendition was one of the first 3D chipset makers to see the value of homebrew programming by releasing a free programming API to the public. In much the same manner as 3Dfx, Rendition also hosted a programming competition called "Take it to the RRedline" to allow homebrew programmers to show off their abilities (as well as Rendition's product).

Notable game titles with native Rendition API support included; Grand Prix Legends, IndyCar Racing II, Descent II, the Myth games, Quake, Quake II, and Tomb Raider.

[edit] Downfall

Unfortunately, Rendition was always one step behind other competitors. The 2D engine added to the V1000 was more of an afterthought to offer features competitive with the S3 ViRGE, the NVIDIA RIVA 128, and the Matrox Mystique, but it turned into a liability as consumers discovered its barely adequate performance and various display oddities. The V2x00 series 2D accelerator was somewhat improved but it again didn't keep pace and was far behind the best 2D accelerators of the day. In addition, Rendition could never seem to keep up with 3Dfx and NVIDIA in terms of 3D performance. The V2200 was late to market, performed no better than previous-generation chips from competitors, and had slow and incomplete OpenGL support. Driver releases improved the OpenGL compatibility over time, but demand simply wasn't there for V2200 because of sub par performance relative to the card's peers and the inevitable release of even faster cards during this time of rapid change within the industry.

The company was eventually purchased by Micron, who kept the development team intact as a source of embedded graphics solutions for their own line of motherboards. Rendition's engineers were initially excited by the prospect of utilizing Micron's embedded DRAM technology for a high-end graphics processor, but such a product never surfaced.

[edit] Trivia

Rendition's headquarters was located next to Fry's Santa Clara's parking lot.
The trouble Rendition caused John Carmack in developing vQuake led him to refuse to support any more proprietary graphics APIs. Ironically, this drove Carmack to develop GLQuake, which was partly responsible for Rendition's downfall.
During Micron's acquisition of Rendition, the company tried to convince Micron that continuing graphics development was in their best interests. They announced the v3000, the "RRedline Multimedia Accelerator" (RMA). They released a series of Facts of the Week detailing creative new features, but the card never surfaced.
Rendition's "Conspiracy Project" combined a Fujitsu FXG-1 "Pinolite" geometry processor with a v2200 core to create a graphics processor with a full transform and lighting (T&L) graphics engine years before the Nvidia GeForce 256. The card was never brought to market because its overall performance was well below what the competition was bringing out at the time.