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Glide API
Glide is a 3D graphics API developed by 3dfx Interactive for their ''Voodoo Graphics'' 3D accelerator cards. Although it originally started as a proprietary API, it was later open sourced by 3dfx. It was dedicated to rendering performance, supporting geometry and texture mapping primarily, in data formats identical to those used internally in their cards. Wide adoption of 3Dfx led to Glide being extensively used in the late 1990s, but further refinement of Microsoft's Direct3D and the appearance of full OpenGL implementations from other graphics card vendors, in addition to growing diversity in 3D hardware, eventually caused it to become superfluous. Glide wrappers and emulators Glide emulator development has been in progress since the late 1990s. During 3dfx's lifetime, the company was aggressive at trying to stop these attempts to emulate their proprietary API, shutting down early emulation projects with legal threats. However, just before it ceased operations and had its ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
3dfx Interactive
3dfx Interactive was an American technology company headquartered in San Jose, California, founded in 1994, that specialized in the manufacturing of 3D graphics processing units, and later, video cards. It was a pioneer in the field from the late 1990s until 2000. The company's original product was the Voodoo Graphics, an add-in card that implemented hardware acceleration of 3D graphics. The hardware accelerated only 3D rendering, relying on the PC's current video card for 2D support. Despite this limitation, the Voodoo Graphics product and its follow-up, Voodoo2, were popular. It became standard for 3D games to offer support for the company's Glide API. The success of the company's products led to renewed interest in 3D gaming, and by the second half of the 1990s, products combining a 2D output with reasonable 3D performance were appearing. This was accelerated by the introduction of Microsoft's Direct3D, which provided a single high-performance API that could be implemented ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Graphics Card
A graphics card (also called a video card, display card, graphics adapter, VGA card/VGA, video adapter, display adapter, or mistakenly GPU) is an expansion card which generates a feed of output images to a display device, such as a computer monitor. Graphics cards are sometimes called discrete or dedicated graphics cards to emphasize their distinction to Graphics processing unit#Integrated graphics, integrated graphics. A graphics processing unit that performs the necessary computations is the main component of a graphics card, but the acronym "GPU" is sometimes also used to refer to the graphics card as a whole. Most graphics cards are not limited to simple display output. The graphics processing unit can be used for additional processing, which reduces the load from the central processing unit. Additionally, computing platforms such as OpenCL and CUDA allow using graphics cards for General-purpose computing on graphics processing units, general-purpose computing. Applications o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Free 3D Graphics Software
Free may refer to: Concept * Freedom, having the ability to do something, without having to obey anyone/anything * Freethought, a position that beliefs should be formed only on the basis of logic, reason, and empiricism * Emancipate, to procure political rights, as for a disenfranchised group * Free will, control exercised by rational agents over their actions and decisions * Free of charge, also known as gratis. See Gratis vs libre. Computing * Free (programming), a function that releases dynamically allocated memory for reuse * Free format, a file format which can be used without restrictions * Free software, software usable and distributable with few restrictions and no payment * Freeware, a broader class of software available at no cost Mathematics * Free object ** Free abelian group ** Free algebra ** Free group ** Free module ** Free semigroup * Free variable People * Free (surname) * Free (rapper) (born 1968), or Free Marie, American rapper and media personality ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cross-platform Free Software
In computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in several computing platforms. Some cross-platform software requires a separate build for each platform, but some can be directly run on any platform without special preparation, being written in an interpreted language or compiled to portable bytecode for which the interpreters or run-time packages are common or standard components of all supported platforms. For example, a cross-platform application may run on Microsoft Windows, Linux, and macOS. Cross-platform software may run on many platforms, or as few as two. Some frameworks for cross-platform development are Codename One, Kivy, Qt, Flutter, NativeScript, Xamarin, Phonegap, Ionic, and React Native. Platforms ''Platform'' can refer to the type of processor (CPU) or other hardware on which an operating system (OS) or application runs, t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Application Programming Interfaces
An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how to build or use such a connection or interface is called an ''API specification''. A computer system that meets this standard is said to ''implement'' or ''expose'' an API. The term API may refer either to the specification or to the implementation. In contrast to a user interface, which connects a computer to a person, an application programming interface connects computers or pieces of software to each other. It is not intended to be used directly by a person (the end user) other than a computer programmer who is incorporating it into the software. An API is often made up of different parts which act as tools or services that are available to the programmer. A program or a programmer that uses one of these parts is said to ''call'' that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
3D Graphics APIs
3-D, 3D, or 3d may refer to: Science, technology, and mathematics Relating to three-dimensionality * Three-dimensional space ** 3D computer graphics, computer graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data ** 3D film, a motion picture that gives the illusion of three-dimensional perception ** 3D modeling, developing a representation of any three-dimensional surface or object ** 3D printing, making a three-dimensional solid object of a shape from a digital model ** 3D display, a type of information display that conveys depth to the viewer ** 3D television, television that conveys depth perception to the viewer ** Stereoscopy, any technique capable of recording three-dimensional visual information or creating the illusion of depth in an image Other uses in science and technology or commercial products * 3D projection * 3D rendering * 3D scanning, making a digital representation of three-dimensional objects * 3D video game (other) * 3-D Secure, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
3D Computer Graphics
3D computer graphics, or “3D graphics,” sometimes called CGI, 3D-CGI or three-dimensional computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data (often Cartesian) that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering digital images, usually 2D images but sometimes 3D images. The resulting images may be stored for viewing later (possibly as an animation) or displayed in real time. 3D computer graphics, contrary to what the name suggests, are most often displayed on two-dimensional displays. Unlike 3D film and similar techniques, the result is two-dimensional, without visual depth. More often, 3D graphics are being displayed on 3D displays, like in virtual reality systems. 3D graphics stand in contrast to 2D computer graphics which typically use completely different methods and formats for creation and rendering. 3D computer graphics rely on many of the same algorithms as 2D computer vector gr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mantle (API)
Mantle was a low-overhead rendering API targeted at 3D video games. AMD originally developed Mantle in cooperation with DICE, starting in 2013. Mantle was designed as an alternative to Direct3D and OpenGL, primarily for use on personal computers, although Mantle supports the GPUs present in the PlayStation 4 and in the Xbox One. In 2015, Mantle's public development was suspended and in 2019 completely discontinued, as DirectX 12 and the Mantle-derived Vulkan rose in popularity. Overview The draw call improvements of Mantle help alleviate cases where the CPU is the bottleneck. The design goals of Mantle are to allow games and applications to utilize the CPUs and GPUs more efficiently, eliminate CPU bottlenecks by reducing API validation overhead and allowing more effective scaling on multiple CPU cores, provide faster draw routines, and allow greater control over the graphics pipeline by eliminating certain aspects of hardware abstraction inherent to both current prevailing grap ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MiniGL
MiniGL is an incomplete implementation of the OpenGL specification which implements enough of the API to allow 3D video games in the late 1990s to run with hardware acceleration on contemporary graphics cards, which otherwise provided their own APIs. The original implementation came from 3dfx Interactive, and was designed around supporting '' Quake''. Other companies implementing similar software included PowerVR and Rendition. History In 1996, id Software announced that the Rendition Vérité was to be the only hardware 3D accelerator targeted by ''Quake''. Partly because of the perceived hassle in supporting chipset specific APIs and partly because ''Quakes development heritage on high-end workstations made such a thing easy. They also released a Microsoft Windows port of their OpenGL version of ''Quake'', even though no consumer chipset had OpenGL support at the time. In response, 3dfx developed and quickly released the first MiniGL: a quick implementation of the bare min ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vulkan (API)
Vulkan is a low-Overhead (computing), overhead, cross-platform API, open standard for 3D graphics and compute kernel, computing. Vulkan targets high-performance real-time 3D graphics applications, such as video games and interactive media. Vulkan is intended to offer higher performance and more efficient CPU and GPU usage compared to older OpenGL and Direct3D 11 APIs. It provides a considerably lower-level API for the application than the older APIs, making Vulkan comparable to Apple Inc., Apple's Metal (API), Metal API and Microsoft, Microsoft's Direct3D 12. In addition to its lower CPU usage, Vulkan is designed to allow developers to better distribute work among Multi-core processor, multiple CPU cores. Vulkan was first announced by the non-profit Khronos Group at Game Developers Conference, GDC 2015. The Vulkan API was initially referred to as the "next generation OpenGL initiative", or "OpenGL next" by Khronos, but use of those names was discontinued when Vulkan was announced ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nvidia
Nvidia CorporationOfficially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as VIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to early-mid 2000s. Though unofficial, second letter capitalization of NVIDIA, i.e. nVidia, may be found within enthusiast communities and publications. ( ) is an American multinational technology company incorporated in Delaware and based in Santa Clara, California. It is a software and fabless company which designs graphics processing units (GPUs), application programming interface (APIs) for data science and high-performance computing as well as system on a chip units (SoCs) for the mobile computing and automotive market. Nvidia is a global leader in artificial intelligence hardware and software. Its professional line of GPUs are used in workstations for applications in such fields as architecture, engineering and construction, media ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
OpenGL
OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D vector graphics. The API is typically used to interact with a graphics processing unit (GPU), to achieve hardware-accelerated rendering. Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI) began developing OpenGL in 1991 and released it on June 30, 1992; applications use it extensively in the fields of computer-aided design (CAD), virtual reality, scientific visualization, information visualization, flight simulation, and video games. Since 2006, OpenGL has been managed by the non-profit technology consortium Khronos Group. Design The OpenGL specification describes an abstract API for drawing 2D and 3D graphics. Although it is possible for the API to be implemented entirely in software, it is designed to be implemented mostly or entirely in hardware. The API is defined as a set of functions which may be called by the client program, alongside a set of named intege ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
