Nuggets: Creative's new Annihilator
Creative is out to Annihilate all you gamers.
Creative Tuesday unveiled its first graphics board based on Nvidia's powerhouse GeForce 256 graphics processor.
The 3D Blaster Annihilator features a new QuadEngine design for hardware transform and lighting along with a 256bit QuadPipe giving a fill rate of 480 MegaPixels per second. Commenting on the move to transform and lighting, Eoin Leyden, European brand manager for Creative, said "the whole industry is moving toward T&L. There is no question of it now being supported."
The Annihilator also boasts 32bit z-buffer, 8 bit stencil buffer, large texture support and 32MB of frame buffer memory. In support of Creative's decision to stick with 32MB, rather than moving up to 64MB, Leyden said: "Leaving aside the problem of the soaring cost of memory, there is at present no content out there that requires more than 32MB."
350MHz RAMDAC will give all you hardened gamers 2D performance at resolutions of up 2048 x 1536 at 16.7 million colours.
Leyden promised that Creative will be the first manufacturer to supply volume shipments of graphics cards built around Nvidia's GeForce chip. "This is a result of our close relationship with Nvidia, having built its first boards," said Leyden.
The software bundle will include technology demos, soft-DVD and a selection of games. Games currently under final approval for inclusion include Evolva and Midnight GT.
Without divulging any further details, Leyden also announced that Creative's as-yet-unnamed, next generation Webcam would be portable.
"Once you've unplugged the USB cable, you've got a digital still camera with a 4MB internal memory. While everyone hates making predictions, after we launch this I would expect 75 percent of Webcams to be portable within 12 months," said Leyden.
The card will be on the shelves next month.
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