3D graphics |
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Graphical representation of a scene or object along three axes of
reference: height, width and depth (x,y, and z) to make it look more realistic.
Technique often used in scientific modeling or visualization and growing in the
entertainment market |
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Bitmap |
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Two-dimensional image |
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Texture mapping |
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Warping of a bitmap onto a 3D object or polygon to enhance realism |
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Perspective correct texture mapping |
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Texture warping is performed with correction for proper perspective. This
feature is very important in creating a realistic representation of the 3D
scene, and it reduces gross artifacts, present in non-perspective correct
rendering |
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Shaded or Lit textures |
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Texture mapped objects or polygons to which the element of light have been
added to accentuate a shape or a perspective. Especially useful to emphasize the
curve of an object |
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Texture Transparency (or Chroma Keying) |
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Ability of the hardware to recognize a key color within a texture map and
make it "transparent" when warping the texture onto a polygon. This
feature is useful as not all objects are easily modeled with polygons. Using
transparency, these detailed objects can therefore be easily included in the
scene as texture maps |
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Texture compression |
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Reduces storage requirements of texture information in offscreen memory,
therefore allowing more detailed bitmaps, or more textures maps, to be used. The
Matrox Mystique uses a proprietary compression algorithm which allows it to
store up to four times more CLUT8 textures, allowing for more detailed game
scenes |
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CLUT4 |
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This stands for 4-bit Color Look Up Table. The CLUT4 is used as a palette
for a piece of artwork to be used as a source texture map. This is a way of
specifying the color of each source texel in a texel map with only 4 bits of
information. This means that the source texture map only has 16 different
colors inherent to it. While this is limiting, it is still appropriate for
simple textures such as brick patterns. The Matrox Mystique converts this
palletized information into a 16-bit RGB value and then performs true color
lighting, etc. on it before integrating it into the 16-bit display buffer. With
the Matrox Mystique, a different palette may be associated with each source
texture map |
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CLUT8 |
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This stands for 8-bit Color Look Up Table. Similar to the CLUT4, the CLUT8
is extremely useful as it provides a 2-1 compression over 16-bit artwork, but
provides virtually the same color content. Each source texture map may have its
own unique 256 entry palette associated with it, which is dynamically converted
to 16-bit color by the Matrox Mystique at runtime |
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Z-buffering |
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Checking the z-value, or depth, of each pixel to be drawn against other
pixels', in order to determine which pixels or polygons will be drawn and which
will be hidden. The z-buffer is a portion of off-screen memory reserved to
store the z-value of each pixel |
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Double Buffering |
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Technique of dividing the frame buffer into two areas, one drawing buffer
and one display buffer. This allows the application to display a frame of
animation from one buffer while drawing the next frame into the other, therefore
making 3D animation smooth |
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PCI Bus Master |
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By acting as a PCI bus master, the Matrox Mystique is able to fetch data
directly from system memory without requiring interaction by the host CPU. This
is a vital component of making a fast 3D rendering engine, as sending both the
command lists of polygons and the texture maps directly into offscreen frame
buffer memory adds significant rendering speed |
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Direct 3D |
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3D application developers interface established by Microsoft under Windows
95, which allows 3D software developers to take advantage of installed
Direct3D-compatible hardware |
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Color Space Conversion |
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Conversion of digital information into a different color format. Generally
used for digital video playback, to convert video data which is typically
compressed in YUV format into RGB information for the monitor |
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Scaling |
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Making an image larger (up scaling) or smaller (down scaling) than its
original size. Used mostly in video playback to make video window larger |
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Pixel duplication (or replication) |
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A method of upscaling where pixel values are simply repeated to make a
larger overall image. This results in a blocky looking video image |
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Interpolation |
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A method of upscaling where pixel values are obtained by averaging between
adjacent pixels to calculate the color information displayed. This method
drastically reduces the blocky artifacts found when using simple pixel
replication |
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Front-end scaling |
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Superior method of scaling which takes advantage of a shared frame buffer
access to deliver high quality video scaling. This approach is supported by
Microsoft's DirectDraw |
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Single-ported memory |
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A memory device wherein both the graphics controller and the RAMDAC have to
share a single port to access the memory. When the RAMDAC is reading
information from the memory to refresh the display, the graphics engine is not
capable of performing drawing operations. Therefore, as display refresh takes up
more bandwidth in high resolutions, high refresh rates or high color depths, the
graphics engine is stalled waiting for the RAMDAC to finish displaying |
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Dual-ported memory |
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A memory device wherein the graphics controller and the RAMDAC each have a
separate port to access the display memory. Because of this the graphics engine
always has access to the memory, and drawing operations do not take a
performance hit in response to higher resolutions, higher color depths or higher
refresh rates |
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Dual Bank |
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This term is used in reference to a feature of SGRAM which the Matrox
Mystique utilizes. This feature is the capability of having two separate pages
in video memory open simultaneously. Most other memory architectures can only
have a single page in memory open at one time. Since page breaks - incurred by
opening new pages in memory - negatively impact performance, the ability to have
two pages open at once drastically improves performance |
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For more information on 3D technology, read "Anatomy of a 3D games accelerator"
white paper. |