WHY INTERACTIVE GAMES ARE DRIVING MULTIMEDIA PC DEVELOPMENT

According to the newly released 1996 SIMBA Game Player Survey conducted by the popular Internet site Happy Puppy Games, SIMBA Information and The Greenfield Consulting Group, nearly 86% of respondents polled had upgraded their system’s hardware solely to improve game playing.

Already PC vendors have adopted faster CD ROM drives (see stories on previous pages). The next step PC makers are taking is to enhance the graphics capability of their systems to display the games with arcade game quality.

Already PC vendors have adopted faster CD ROM drives (see stories on previous pages). The next step PC makers are taking is to enhance the graphics capability of their systems to display the games with arcade game quality.

As a result, is it any wonder that major PC manufacturers are adapting their hardware to accommodate this demand. The best example is the recent announcement from Compaq Computer Corp. of Houston, Tex. and a competing offering from NEC Technologies, Inc. of Boxborough, Mass.

Compaq announced plans to include the advanced 3-D graphics technology, PowerVR, in its new Presario products due out later this year. NEC announced plans for its PowerPlayer line of ultra-high performance multimedia PCs. The systems announced in June are expected to be available through retail channels in the second half of 1996.

The Compaq and NEC 3D graphics solutions claim to be faster than today’s dedicated game systems, a move intended to combat high-end video game boxes from Nintendo, Sega, and Sony.

VideoLogic, Inc. in San Bruno, Calif. and NEC Electronics in Mountain View, Calif., drawing on experience in flight simulators, ray tracing and other advanced 3D fields, developed PowerVR jointly. The resulting system breaks performance barriers by eliminating bandwidth bottlenecks.

NEC Technologies—a sister company to NEC Electronics—gets its 2-D and 3-D graphics technology from a strategic relationships with 3Dfx Interactive of Mountain View, Calif. and ATI Technologies Inc. of Thornhill, Ontario, Canada.
The former supplies the 3Dfx Voodoo Graphics chipset, a graphics accelerator. The latter provides a Windows accelerator.

Both PC vendors claim the new capability will provide consumers arcade-quality 3D graphics on their home PC with lifelike and vivid graphics, smooth animation and rich colors which dramatically improve the game play and multimedia experience.

Both are working with software developers to create games for their respective systems. The 3D acceleration technology allows the latest arcade hits to be converted to the PC.

Compaq is claiming that Arcade titles converted to PowerVR retain their full visual quality. Leading arcade developers are converting their most popular games to run on technology, while PC game developers are taking advantage of its power to bring arcade-quality 3D realism to their newest titles.

NEC has already made headway as a PC game supplier. The company debuted a system last year tailored for the needs of the game market. With these new systems coming to market at the same time new 64-bit video games are ramping up, the stage is set for a major battle between the two camps.

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