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The Story of Rendition: A Pioneer in 3D Graphics

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The Story of Rendition: A Pioneer in 3D Graphics

PC gamers today have the luxury of choosing from a variety of graphics cards, thanks to the three main GPU manufacturers. However, this was not always the case. Three decades ago, there were over ten GPU companies, each with its own unique approach to graphics rendering. Among these companies was Rendition, a trailblazer in the 3D gaming industry that experienced a rollercoaster of success and obscurity within a short span of five years.

During the early 1990s, PC gaming was a mix of excitement and frustration, with hardware compatibility being a major challenge. The popular PCs of that era, such as those from Compaq, Dell, and Gateway, were not designed for gaming. Graphics cards at the time, like the ATI Graphics Ultra Pro 2D accelerator, were basic and lacked the capabilities required for advanced gaming experiences.

While consoles like the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis and Super NES offered better visual output, PC games were still limited by the hardware available. Point-and-click adventure games dominated the market, requiring minimal graphics card support. However, the shift towards 3D graphics was imminent, as seen in arcade machines and games like Doom.

Rendition entered the scene in 1993, aiming to create a chipset that could handle both 2D and 3D graphics acceleration. Despite facing competition from other established and new companies, Rendition’s innovative approach set it apart in the evolving graphics card market.

First blood is drawn

In 1995, Rendition introduced its first product, the Vérité V1000-E, which showcased a unique architecture compared to other graphics cards of the time. With a focus on efficient rendering tasks and hardware optimizations, the V1000 set the stage for Rendition’s entry into the competitive graphics card market.

The V1000’s feature of handling all vertex processing in a 3D game relieved the CPU of this task, giving it much-needed relief. The V1000 cards used the PCI bus to connect to the host computer, taking advantage of features like bus mastering and DMA for increased performance. Additionally, Rendition’s graphics card was fully programmable, making it the first consumer-grade GPGPU, with multiple HALs developed for Windows and DOS to convert instructions from various APIs into code for the chipset.

The highlight of the Vérité chipset came with the release of Quake and its optimized port, VQuake, which took advantage of the V1000’s capabilities. However, the V1000 faced limitations such as lack of hardware support for z-buffers, leading programmers to still rely on the CPU for some calculations.

While the V1000 was impressive for a first attempt at a graphics accelerator, it faced issues with bugs, slow performance in legacy modes, and poor OpenGL support. This ultimately defined its legacy in the industry.

3Dfx Interactive’s Voodoo Graphics, released before the V1000, offered faster rendering speeds and better performance, ultimately overshadowing Rendition’s offering. Despite efforts to improve with the V1000L-P chip, Rendition couldn’t compete with 3Dfx’s dominance in the market.

Rendition began working on a successor to the V1000, aiming to address its weaknesses and improve its strengths. The V2100 and V2200, released in 1997, featured improved clock speeds, upgraded processors, and better support for features like z-buffers and single cycle texture filtering. Apart from the clock speed, the only distinction between the two chips was their speed, yet most vendors chose the quicker model. The reason for this was quite simple – they could charge a higher price for it. For example, Diamond Multimedia initially sold the V2100-powered Stealth II S220 for $99 (later reducing it to half price due to poor sales), while the Hercules Thriller 3D, using a 63 MHz V2200, was priced at $129 for the 4 MB version and $240 for the 8 MB version.

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As successors to the V1000, these new chips were clear improvements, albeit somewhat understated. Performance was noticeably better, and the additional features enhanced compatibility with the increasing number of 3D games entering the market. However, Rendition faced challenges during the development of the V2000 series, encountering numerous glitches due to the company’s design process. Without their fabrication plants, Rendition relied heavily on software for processor testing, leading to delays in the target launch.

Despite these setbacks, Rendition’s engineering efforts attracted enough interest to secure further investment from other companies. However, the V2000 series fell short compared to the advancements made by competitors such as ATI, Nvidia, and PowerVR.

In 1998, Rendition’s Vérité graphics chipset development was ongoing when the company, along with its intellectual property and staff, was acquired by Micron Technology, an American DRAM manufacturer. The V3000 series was anticipated to offer improvements, but the project failed to progress quickly enough to compete with other leading products, leading to its abandonment.

Instead, the V4000 project was initiated with a planned launch in 2000, aiming to incorporate new features like embedded DRAM. However, concerns over the chip’s size led to the project’s cancellation, and Micron shifted focus to the motherboard chipset market before eventually exiting the chipset market altogether.

Rendition’s graphics processors met their end with Micron, who did not utilize the IP and eventually phased out the Rendition name. Today, Rendition remains a small footnote in the history of graphics processors, highlighting a time when chip designers pursued diverse approaches in the rapidly evolving world of 3D graphics. Please rephrase this sentence.

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