Background information: Multimedia and the PC

The PC market is undergoing a fundamental change as machines that were originally designed purely for business use evolve into complete consumer multimedia platforms, where text, sound, graphics, voice and video are integrated in applications such as games, education and business presentations. Indeed, multimedia PCs and games machines, which are the fruits of a triple convergence of computing, communications and consumer electronics, are now among the most important new markets for advanced semiconductor solutions.

The major challenge facing PC manufacturers is that consumers expect the video and audio quality provided by the multimedia PC to match or surpass what is already available with today's TV and hi-fi equipment - at consumer prices, of course! With Windows 95 now providing an environment that supports 2-D graphics, 3-D graphics, video, audio, input and communications - all the media types that are required for a consumer multimedia platform - what is now required is breakthrough technology that can accelerate Windows 95 and deliver a compelling multimedia experience at a consumer price point.

Looking at the kind of applications that are emerging, the key technology is clearly consumer 3-D for interactive and realistic environments, combined with an architecture that is capable of handling concurrent media types.

The key to delivering this capability at a consumer price point is to reuse existing system resources whenever possible while providing acceleration where necessary.

The system resources of a consumer multimedia PC include a high performance CPU, at least 8MByte of system memory and a high performance local bus (mainly PCI on new machines). The exact partitioning of tasks between the CPU and the Multimedia Accelerator will depend on the performance of the CPU; as CPU performances increase, some tasks can be moved from the Multimedia Accelerator to the CPU. However it will be a long time before a CPU alone can deliver full motion, full screen Consumer-3D rendering, video decompression, communications and wavetable synthesis audio, all concurrently!

SGS-THOMSON's roadmap for Multimedia Accelerators is firmly based on this philosophy. Functions will be added to Accelerators as applications and consumers demand them; conversely, functions can be deleted from the Accelerators when the CPU performance rises to the level required to implement the function in software. By offering Accelerators that complement the CPU performance in each generation, SGS-THOMSON will ensure that compelling high performance multimedia can be delivered at a consumer price point.

The first generation of Multimedia Accelerators from SGS-THOMSON, launched earlier this year, provides the perfect platform for Windows 95 Acceleration. The STG2000, for example, combines 2-D acceleration, consumer 3-D acceleration, full motion video acceleration, wavetable audio and a high precision digital game port while at the same time supporting legacy requirements including VGA, SVGA and DOS Audio standards.

The resulting platform accelerates all aspects of Windows 95 and its Direct APIs, including Direct Draw (2-D acceleration), Direct 3D (consumer 3-D), Direct Video (video acceleration), Direct Sound (wavetable audio) and Direct Input (high precision gameport etc.). This means that a Windows 95 Multimedia PC can be easily built using a high performance CPU (486DX and upwards), 8-16Mbyte of system memory, an STG2000 Multimedia Accelerator and a simple dedicated Data Fax/Modem.

In particular, the STG2000 Multimedia Accelerator's Consumer 3-D and Wavetable Audio capabilities provide a true "multimedia experience" under Windows 95 that at last enables consumer expectations for a multimedia PC to be met within the framework of consumer price structures.

An example of how the STG2000 achieves its unprecedented combination of high performance and consumer price is way that the architecture handles wavetable samples. Unlike most other wavetable products, which require expensive additional memory, the STG2000 stores wavetable samples in the system memory, using its fast local bus and bus-mastering DMA controller to communicate with the system memory without burdening the PC's microprocessor.

SGS-THOMSON's Multimedia Accelerators are fully compatible with NV Architecture (TM), a coherent multimedia architecture that offers a unified media interface for software developers. This means that a software developer who programs to the architecture is guaranteed a consistent set of capabilities and therefore can fully utilize these capabilities.

The first commercially available hardware product to use the STG2000's breakthrough Multimedia Accelerator technology was the 'Diamond EDGE 3D' Board announced by Diamond Multimedia Systems in September. Other PC add-in manufacturers and OEMs, as well as software title developers such as Domark, Interplay, Papyrus and SEGA, have also announced support for this platform.

It is clear that the key requirement for the next generation of Multimedia Accelerators is the provision of even greater levels of REALISM and INTERACTIVITY, along with enhanced COMMUNICATIONS capabilities. SGS-THOMSON's next generation of Multimedia Accelerators will deliver increased performance in each of these areas, using the industry's most advanced process technology to deliver maximum performance and integration.

B382P

Top