🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <420jhv$bnu@steel.interlog.com>, daveacg@interlog.com (Dave
Glue) wrote:

> >Since a $2000 complete 100Mhz 604-based multi-media system should be
> >available from Power Computing by Christmas (if not by next month), this
> >perception can only be reinforced. I'd guess that a 132Mhz System would 
> >cost about $600 more.
> 
> Nice price.  But even a 604 couldn't hold a candle to custom 3D and 2D
> accelerator cards.  The 95 game SDK taps into this, as does Quickdraw
> 3D's acceleration API.  Nvidia, Yamaha, and Creative Labs have all
> announced 3D acceleration products, and can also accelerate 2D games
> through the DirectDraw API.  A 604 Power Mac without one of these
> looks very woefull as an entertainment platform in comparison to the
> newer consoles.  It will likely get them with PCI, although I haven't
> heard of a company announcing a low-end, games oriented 3D accelerator
> for the Mac yet.
> 
> Not to mention, the 95 games SDK handles many aspects of game
> creation.  Sound channel mixing with low latency, directInput API to
> open up a wide area of multi-button joysticks (even providing
> _feedback_), a 3D API tailored for Games (Reality Lab), a standard
> network scheme for multiplayer games (DirectPlay), yadda yadda yadda.

It's interesting to note that one developer (Papyrus) mentioned that
they're getting a roughly the same performance out of DirectDraw as from
WinG. It's not quite what it's hyped up to be just like many things
originated from Microsoft. Besides as far as I could tell current Mac
could do what DirectDraw is designed to do. 604 PowerMacs can use any of
those 3D accelerators at least as well as PCs. I know that at least Matrox
already has 3D cards for Macs.

It's about time PCs get multi-channel sound which Macs enjoyed for quite a
while with Sound Manager 3.x. As for digital joysticks, Mac had the
interface for it for a long time in the form of ADB. For 3D, QuikDraw 3D
should do the job, and it will be available for Windows, too. I don't see
why some game developers will not take advantage of this and develop 3D
games for both.