QUANTUM3D™ ANNOUNCES OBSIDIAN2™ VOODOO2 BASED PRODUCTS FOR GAME "EXTREMIST" MARKET

Company also announces rebate and upgrade program for new and existing customers

SANTA CLARA, CA - March 31, 1998 - Building on its success in the professional realtime 3D graphics market, Quantum3D™, Inc. today announced the Obsidian2™ family of realtime 3D accelerators based on the Voodoo2™  chipset from 3Dfx. For the first time ever, Quantum3D is introducing both new consumer and professional models.   Designed to address the growing market for "game extremists" and priced competitively against other Voodoo2 based offerings, the new consumer level Obsidian2 products incorporate many of the design innovations pioneered by Quantum3D for the professional realtime 3D market including AGP support, simultaneous TV-out, Single Board Scan Line Interleaving (SBSLI™) and up to 24MB of on-board memory. The new models represent the highest-performance, consumer-oriented Voodoo2  based products available in the market today.

The Obsidian2 product family consists of seven different models, which provide a complete range of price and performance for realtime 3D applications-from games to visual simulation.  The new Obsidian2 "S/X" models include the S-12, S-12 AGP, and S-12 AGP TV-each with 12MB of total on-board memory, and the X-16 and X-24 with 16 and 24MB of memory respectively. All of the S and X series products are PCI-based except for the S-12 AGP models.  With the exception of the S-12 AGP, all of the S and X series products also include simultaneous TV-out, which provides gamers with the ability to play games on large screen PAL or NTSC monitors in either composite or S-video formats. The Obsidian2 models employ a "VGA pass-through design" that ensures compatibility with popular 2D/3D primary windows accelerators.

"Hardware savvy customers have been anxiously awaiting the release of the Voodoo2 chipset.  With the lower-end manufacturers fighting each other with 8 and 12MB single processor designs, there hasn't been a clear standout in the Voodoo2 war-until now," said Kelt Reeves, president of Falcon Northwest, a leading manufacturer of PCs for game enthusiasts.  "The release of Quantum3D’s 16MB and 24MB, dual-processor Obsidian2 X-series products will bring a new standard of performance to the market.   We're proud to include the Obsidian2 in our fastest systems, giving our customers the highest level of graphics performance ever offered outside of military simulators."

The flagship product in the Obsidian2 game extremist product line are the X-16 and X-24. The X-series products utilize the Single Board Scan Line Interleaved (SBSLI™) design that Quantum3D developed last year with the Obsidian 100SB™ family of professional realtime 3D accelerators. The Quantum3D SBSLI approach combines two Voodoo2   graphics subsystems that operate in parallel to provide twice the fill rate performance of single Voodoo2  based graphics accelerators-without requiring dual graphics boards (and associated PCI slots) and inter-board SLI interconnection cabling assemblies.  On an Intel Pentiumâ II 333MHz system running id Software’s Quake-II™ benchmark, "Demo 1", the X-16 and X-24 achieve 84.4 frames per second at 1024x768 resolution-the highest of any product benchmarked to date.

"When we spun Quantum3D out of 3Dfx, the goal was simple-to build the highest-performance, highest-quality Voodoo Graphics™ based products in the world," said Ross Q. Smith, Quantum3D executive vice president of sales and marketing, and co-founder of 3Dfx Interactive.  "Our Obsidian series of products were the first to incorporate dual texture units and SLI capabilities-and they established the benchmark for innovation and performance around the Voodoo Graphics architecture.   We’ve taken the same design skills, added volume manufacturing expertise and a web store, and have created the ultimate Voodoo2 products for serious gamers-including the first AGP Voodoo2 board and a new single board SLI implementation for Voodoo2.   We’ve priced these products competitively, so hardcore gamers can finally get Obsidian quality and performance, with enough money left over to buy some games!"

The Obsidian S-12 models employ a 3-chip Voodoo2 chipset with a 196-bit memory architecture that produces 2.2 GB/sec of dedicated graphics memory bandwidth. The X-16 and X-24 employ Quantum3D’s SBSLI architecture with a 6-chip Voodoo2  chipset arrayed in a parallel configuration, with a 382-bit memory architecture that produces 4.4 GB/sec of dedicated graphics memory bandwidth. Such bandwidths enable the S-series and X-series models to sustain 90 or 180 Megapixels-per-second of textured fill rate, respectively, with perspective-correct trilinear texture filtering with per-pixel level-of-detail mip mapping, z-buffering, alpha-blending, and per pixel fog enabled.

The Obsidian2 family benefits from Voodoo2’s improved floating point triangle set-up engine that now supports triangle meshes, strips, and fans.  This enhancement enables the Obsidian2 models to process up to 2.5 million perspective correct, textured triangles per second.  The Obsidian2 S-12 AGP is uniquely able to benefit from the Voodoo2’s triangle performance since its AGP bus interface enables the product to receive triangle and texture data from the PC’s processor at the rate of 264 Megabytes per second-- twice the rate of 33 MHz PCI-based Voodoo2 products.  This increased bus bandwidth will greatly lengthen the S-12 AGP’s product life, since next generation games that feature greater polygonal complexity and more advanced texture mapping will run at markedly higher frame rates on the S-12 AGP than on other Voodoo2   based products.  

"The S-12 AGP can sink data at twice the rate of 33 MHz PCI based Voodoo2 products," said Phil Huelson, Quantum3D vice president of engineering. "This additional bandwidth will pay off in upcoming games that use edge anti-aliasing, or in games that constantly page textures down to the board- which is why Intel used the board to demonstrate the 3D capabilities of Intel’s new "Deschutes" processors at CeBit last week.  "We even see good examples of the added performance today-on Ziff Davis’ 3DBench ‘98, texture test 3, we hit 34fps single-buffered at 640x480 while a Creative board will only hit about 8fps.  That’s about a 400% improvement in texture download speed over the 3D Blaster."

Pricing and Availability
Pricing for the new Obsidian2 line starts at $329 for the Obsidian2 S-12 PCI. The S-12 AGP is priced at $349 and the S-12 AGP TV is priced at $399. The SBSLI X-16 and X-24 models are priced at $599 and $699, respectively.  The game extremist products, along with Quantum3D’s Obsidian 200SB-8440 for professional realtime 3D applications, also announced today, will be available directly from Quantum3D through the company’s new Web Store and through authorized resellers and retailers starting in late April. Obsidian2 products will also be made available in Europe through authorized distributors.

Quantum3D is also offering both new and existing customers a special limited-time upgrade and rebate offer. Additional details on the Obsidian2 rebate offer and the Obsidian2 product will be available on the company’s web site at http://www.quantum3d.com/ .

About The Company
Quantum3D, headquartered in Santa Clara, California, develops and markets price/performance-leading solutions for the advanced visual computing marketplace. Quantum3D focuses on delivering "Affordable Reality™" solutions, which include the Quicksilver™ and Heavy Metal™ line of integrated PC-based visual computing systems and the Obsidian™ and Obsidian2 family of realtime 3D accelerators for  game enthusiasts, PC-based coin-op/LBE, visual simulation and training, and digital content visualization markets.  In addition, Quantum3D markets realtime 3D scene management and visualization software including OpenGVS™ realtime 3D-scene management API from Gemini Technology, Inc. and the RealiStorm™ realtime visualization plug-in software from RealiMation, Inc.  Quantum3D also markets the GCI™ and Gameframe™ family of realtime input products, related tools and subsystems that enable its customers to exploit the full capabilities of the company's systems and graphics hardware products.

###

Quantum3D, Obsidian, Obsidian2, the Quantum3D logo, GCI, SBSLI, Gameframe and Affordable Reality are trademarks of Quantum3D, Inc.  3Dfx Interactive, Voodoo Graphics, and Voodoo2  are trademarks of 3Dfx Interactive, Inc. OpenGVS is a trademark of Gemini Technology, Inc. GLQuake is a trademark of id Software, Inc.   Intel and Pentium are registered trademarks of Intel Corporation.  Digital, Alpha and AXP are trademarks of Digital Equipment Corporation. RealiStorm, RealiMation and Datapath are trademarks of Datapath, Ltd.  All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.