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November 1996 New Products TOC
Compiled by Dave Raffo
Imagine a 128-bit graphics card that costs under $400. Number Nine did. The result is a new low-cost version of its Imagine 128 Series 2. The new card uses the same graphics engine, but incorporates DRAM instead of VRAM.
The Number Nine Imagine 128 Series 2e almost matches the performance of Number Nine's VRAM cards at a display resolution of 1024x768 at 256 colors, the company claims, adding that the difference between the cards is noticeable only at higher resolutions.
The Imagine 128 Series 2e's 128-bit data path draws graphics at either 16 8-bit pixels, eight 16-bit pixels or four 32-bit true color pixels per clock cycle. The card also has a 256-bit video engine and supports software-based MPEG decoding so you need no additional hardware to view MPEG titles. The Imagine 128 Series 2e graphic card plays MPEG clips at full-screen resolutions up to 1024x768 at 16.8 million colors. The card also provides 3-D rendering capabilities that let you run OpenGL applications under Windows NT by using Microsoft's 3-D Mini-Client Driver.
The card ships standard with 4MB of eight-speed EDO DRAM. It will display 256 colors at resolutions up to 1600x1200, 65,000 colors at up to 1280x1024 and 16.8 million colors at up to 1024x768. It includes drivers for Windows 95, NT 3.51 and 4.0, and AutoCAD.
$399
Number Nine Visual Technology Corp.
800-GET-NINE,617-674-0009
Using S3's ViRGE VX chipset, the Diamond Stealth 3D 3000XL 64-bit dual-ported VRAM accelerator bundles Asymetrix 3D F/X, Asymetrix Digital Video Producer, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Compton's International Encyclopedia 96 and several games. The card comes in 2MB and 4MB VRAM models with optional memory upgrades. The Stealth 3D 3000XL provides up to 24-bit color at 1280x1024. The accelerator includes Diamond-enhanced drivers for Windows 95 and 3.1, NT 3.51 and 4.0, AutoCAD, and Microsoft's Direct3D and OpenGL APIs.
2MB, $269; 4MB, $369
Diamond Multimedia Systems
800-468-5846,408-325-7000
To speed your 3-D graphics performance, the ELSA GLoria-L accelerator combines a Glint Delta dedicated geometry processing chip with a new Glint 500TX from 3Dlabs. The accelerator performs 3-D setup calculations that often bottleneck the host CPU. It incorporates the S3 Trio 64 V chip for on-board VGA. The board, which supports resolutions up to 1600x1200, ships standard with 8MB of VRAM and 8MB of single-cycle EDO RAM. It supports OpenGL and Microsoft's Direct3D APIs.
$2,999
ELSA
800-272-ELSA, 408-935-0350
If you really want to air out your graphics, give them some oxygen. The Dynamic Pictures Oxygen 102 ships with 8MB of graphics memory and supports resolutions up to 1600x1200 and 32-bit color depth. The Oxygen graphics engine provides Gouraud shading, texture mapping, anti-aliasing and alpha buffering. It includes optimized drivers for Pentium, Alpha AXP and Mips machines running Win95 and NT.
$1,495
Dynamic Pictures
800-464-3348, 408-327-9000
The miroVideo DC30 video editing system for Windows 95 offers PCI-bus mastering for data rates up to 6MB per second, studio quality video resolution up to 720x480 pixels for NTSC or 768x576 for PAL, and integrated CD-quality audio for lip synchronization. It also features video overlay for real-time playback on your PC monitor, and on-board acceleration. The DC30 includes the full version of Adobe Premiere 4.2, Adobe Photoshop LE and Asymetrix 3D F/X software. To make a videotape with the DC30, you capture your video, edit, add special effects, mix CD-quality audio and output the final cut to tape.
$999
miro Computer Products
800-474-6476, 415-855-0940
Play MPEG video on the Internet with the Sigma IntraVideo MPEG PAK. The package includes REALmagic Producer for capturing and compressing video to MPEG format, which can then be saved to and played from an Internet server. It also provides Adobe Premiere editing software, REALmagic Maxima MPEG playback boards, Astound for creating multimedia presentations and Iprax CourseWorks for building interactive training applications.
$5,995
Sigma Designs
800-845-8086, 510-770-0100
Virtual Home Space Builder 2.0 brings VRML 2.0 authoring to the consumer market. The upgraded Virtual Home Space Builder features a streamlined interface and new tools to create multimedia VRML
home spaces.$49.95; upgrade for version 1.0, free
ParaGraph International
800-810-0055, 408-364-7705
The IBM PC 365 models are built solely for networking. They approach workstation capability, incorporating 180MHz and 200MHz Pentium Pro processors, optional dual processors, Wake-on-LAN technology that lets you update files and inventory equipment even after PCs in the network are turned off, and 4Mbps infrared capability. The 365 models include S.M.A.R.T. technology that predicts crashes. They use the Universal Serial Bus, and come with 64-bit graphics cards (S3 Trio 64Vt or Matrox MGA Millennium) and up to 5 PCI slots.
Prices without monitors: Model 1 (180MHz Pentium Pro, 16MB of RAM, 1.6GB hard disk), $2,400; Model 2 (200MHz Pentium Pro, 32MB of RAM, 1.6GB hard disk, 8X CD-ROM), $3,200; Model 3 (200MHz Pentium Pro, 32MB of RAM, 2.1GB hard disk Ultra SCSI, 6X PD/CD-ROM), $4,440
IBM PC Co.
800-IBM-4968
Adobe's PageMaker 6.5 offers a revised interface as well as online publishing features. PageMaker's facelift gives it an interface more like that of Photoshop, Illustrator and other Adobe software. The new version has interactive tabbed palettes, and new menus and keyboard shortcuts. A hyperlinks palette lets you write hyperlinks within PageMaker to any Web URL, test your links in PageMaker and import multiple hyperlinks. Place HTML and Enhanced HTML Export plug-ins let you import HTML content directly from a Web browser, and export pages and individual stories into HTML. PageMaker 6.5's automatic reformatting feature helps you turn print publications into online documents.
$895; upgrade, $99
Adobe Systems
800-42-ADOBE, 206-470-7000
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