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Glide (API)
Glide is a 3D graphics API developed by 3dfx Interactive for their ''Voodoo Graphics'' 3D accelerator cards. It started as a proprietary API, and 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 assets purchased by Nv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
3dfx Interactive
3dfx Interactive, Inc. was an American computer hardware company headquartered in San Jose, California, founded in 1994, that specialized in the manufacturing of 3D graphics, 3D graphics processing units, and later, video cards. It was a pioneer in the field from the mid 1990s to 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. Renewed interest in 3D gaming led to the success of the company's products and by the second half of the 1990s products combining a 2D output with 3D performance were appearing. This was accelerated by the introduction of Microsoft's Direct3D, which provided a single high-performance API that could be impl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
OpenGL
OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a Language-independent specification, cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D computer graphics, 2D and 3D computer graphics, 3D vector graphics. The API is typically used to interact with a graphics processing unit (GPU), to achieve Hardware acceleration, hardware-accelerated Rendering (computer graphics), rendering. Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI) began developing OpenGL in 1991 and released it on June 30, 1992. It is used for a variety of applications, including computer-aided design (CAD), video games, scientific visualization, virtual reality, and Flight simulator, flight simulation. Since 2006, OpenGL has been managed by the Non-profit organization, non-profit technology consortium Khronos Group. Design The OpenGL specification describes an abstract application programming interface, application programming interface (API) for drawing 2D and 3D graphics. It is designed to be implemented mostly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Free 3D Graphics Software
Free may refer to: Concept * Freedom, the ability to act or change without constraint or restriction * Emancipate, attaining civil and political rights or equality * Free (''gratis''), free of charge * Gratis versus libre, the difference between the two common meanings of the adjective "free". Computing * Free (programming), a function that releases dynamically allocated memory for reuse * Free software, software usable and distributable with few restrictions and no payment *, an emoji in the Enclosed Alphanumeric Supplement block. 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 * Free, a pseudonym for the activist and writer Abbie Hoffman * Free (active 2003–), American musician in the band FreeSol Arts and media Film and television * ''Free'' (film), a 2001 American dramedy * '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cross-platform Free Software
Within 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 Linux, macOS and Microsoft Windows. Cross-platform software may run on many platforms, or as few as two. Some frameworks for cross-platform development are Codename One, ArkUI-X, Kivy, Qt, GTK, Flutter, NativeScript, Xamarin, Apache Cordova, Ionic, and React Native. Platforms ''Platform'' can refer to the type of processor (CPU) or other hardware on which an operating syste ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Application Programming Interfaces
An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how to build 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 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 portion of the API. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
3D Graphics APIs
3D, 3-D, 3d, or Three D may refer to: Science, technology, and mathematics * A three-dimensional space in mathematics Relating to three-dimensionality * 3D computer graphics, computer graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data * 3D display, a type of information display that conveys depth to the viewer * 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 television, television that conveys depth perception to the viewer * 3D projection * 3D rendering * 3D scanning, making a digital representation of three-dimensional objects * 3D video game * Stereoscopy, any technique capable of recording three-dimensional visual information or creating the illusion of depth in an image * Three-dimensional space Other uses in science and technology * 3 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
3D Computer Graphics
3D computer graphics, sometimes called Computer-generated imagery, CGI, 3D-CGI or three-dimensional Computer-generated imagery, computer graphics, are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data (often Cartesian coordinate system#Cartesian coordinates in three dimensions, 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 Computer animation, animation) or displayed in Real-time computer graphics, 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 perception, 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 t ... [...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 EA DICE, DICE, starting in 2013. Mantle was designed as an alternative to Direct3D and OpenGL, primarily for use on personal computers. In 2015, Mantle's public development was suspended and in 2019 completely discontinued, as DirectX 12 and the Mantle-derived Vulkan (API), Vulkan rose in popularity. Overview The draw call improvements of Mantle help alleviate cases where the Central processing unit, CPU is the bottleneck. The design goals of Mantle are to allow games and applications to utilize the Central processing unit, CPUs and Graphics processing unit, 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 ... [...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'', named ''GLQuake'', even though no consumer chipset had OpenGL support at the time. In response, 3dfx developed and quickly released the first MiniGL, called ''3Dfx GL mi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vulkan (API)
Vulkan is a cross-platform API and open standard for 3D graphics and computing. It was intended to address the shortcomings of OpenGL, and allow developers more control over the GPU. It is designed to support a wide variety of GPUs, CPUs and operating systems, and it is also designed to work with modern multi-core CPUs. Microsoft supports Vulkan 1.2 (and more) on Windows 10 and 11, with a downloadable compatibility pack. Overview Vulkan targets high-performance real-time 3D-graphics applications, such as video games and interactive media, and highly parallelized computing. Vulkan is intended to offer higher performance and more efficient CPU and GPU usage compared to the older OpenGL and Direct3D 11 APIs. It does so by providing a considerably lower-level API for the application than the older APIs, that more closely resembles how modern GPUs work. Vulkan is comparable to Apple's Metal API and Microsoft's Direct3D 12. In addition to its lower CPU usage, Vulkan is des ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Register
''The Register'' (often also called El Reg) is a British Technology journalism, technology news website co-founded in 1994 by Mike Magee (journalist), Mike Magee and John Lettice. The online newspaper's Nameplate_(publishing), masthead Logo, sublogo is "''Biting the hand that feeds IT''." The publication's primary focus is information technology news and opinions. Situation Publishing Ltd is the site's publisher. Drew Cullen is an owner and Linus Birtles is the managing director. Andrew Orlowski was the executive editor before leaving the website in May 2019. History ''The Register'' was founded in London as an email newsletter called ''Chip Connection''. In 1998 ''The Register'' became a daily online news source. Magee left in 2001 to start competing publications ''The Inquirer'', and later the ''IT Examiner'' and ''TechEye''. In 2002, ''The Register'' expanded to have a presence in London and San Francisco, creating ''The Register USA'' at theregus.com through a joint ventu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nvidia
Nvidia Corporation ( ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and incorporated in Delaware. Founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang (president and CEO), Chris Malachowsky, and Curtis Priem, it designs and supplies graphics processing units (GPUs), application programming interfaces (APIs) for data science and high-performance computing, and system on a chip units (SoCs) for mobile computing and the automotive market. Nvidia is also a leading supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) hardware and software. Nvidia outsources the manufacturing of the hardware it designs. Nvidia's professional line of GPUs are used for edge-to-cloud computing and in supercomputers and workstations for applications in fields such as architecture, engineering and construction, media and entertainment, automotive, scientific research, and manufacturing design. Its GeForce line of GPUs are aimed at the consumer market and are used in ap ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
