First 3D Gaming Video Card, Creative 3D Blaster, To Include NASCAR Racing Software

Creative (best known for their sound cards) have today announced the first 3D gaming card for the home PC market, and NASCAR Racing by Papyrus will be one of the launch titles!

The card is expected to release for the PC VESA VL bus later this year with a PCI release early next year.

Press release:

CREATIVE INTRODUCES THE WORLD’S FIRST 3D GAME CARD FOR HOME PCs; TURNS THE PC INTO THE ULTIMATE GAME MACHINE
World’s Leading Multimedia Supplier Sets New Home PC Gaming Standard By Providing True 3D Graphics For Educational Software and PC Games

SINGAPORE, Aug. 16 — Creative Technology Ltd. (Nasdaq: CREAF), the leading provider of multimedia consumer products for personal computers, today announced 3D Blaster(TM) — the first high-performance add-in board that gives consumers the capability to bring all the excitement and visual realism of today’s most advanced 3D arcade games to their home PC.

3D Blaster is the first high-performance 3D game card available to consumers. It also is the first product in the standard-setting Blaster family to bring true three-dimensional texture mapped graphics to the home PC. With 3D Blaster, Creative is targeting the largest segment of all home computers in use today. That segment is now more than 20 million 486-based systems.

Since entering the market six years ago and creating the multimedia upgrade market, Creative Labs has become a $1.2 billion multimedia powerhouse with an installed base of more than 15 million Sound Blaster audio products in use worldwide. Like Sound Blaster(R), 3D Blaster has attracted broad industry support from the world’s leading game developers, such as Interplay, EA/Bullfrog and more than 200 others, and software vendors, including Microsoft.

With 3D Blaster, Creative is extending its industry-standard multimedia technology to include next-generation 3D gaming performance on the PC. Together with its Sound Blaster AWE32 advanced audio board that supports 3D sound, 3D Blaster provides a complete Blaster(TM) branded solution for PC gaming. These technologies are designed specifically to take full advantage of the ultra realism being incorporated into new PC games.

“Creative’s vision is to bring the most advanced PC technology to the home market at value pricing,” said Sim Wong Hoo, CEO and chairman of Creative Technology Ltd. “3D Blaster makes this promise for next- generation game play on the PC in the same way Sound Blaster did for audio six years ago. However, we expect the impact of 3D Blaster to be significantly bigger, given the momentum today in the home PC market. Sound Blaster ignited sales of multimedia titles, and 3D Blaster will do the same for next-generation educational software and games, including on-line telegaming sessions.”

“By bringing workstation-level graphics performance to the home PC, we are enabling consumers to get all the excitement and realism of the latest high-end 3D arcade games from their current generation home PC. We’re setting a new standard for PC gaming on home computers,” Mr. Sim added.

Broad Industry Support

In its drive to provide consumers the ultimate gaming experience on the PC, Creative has attracted wide industry support for 3D Blaster from the world’s leading independent software vendors and computer game developers. Microsoft, EA/BullFrog, Interplay, Mindscape and Looking Glass are among the nearly 200 software companies who are supporting 3D Blaster.

“Creative Lab’s 3D Blaster takes computer gaming to a new level. The 3D Blaster is optimized for the Windows 95 DirectDraw, Reality Lab, and Direct3D API’s and provides us with the first opportunity to demonstrate the true 2D and 3D gaming capabilities inherent in Windows 95” said Brad Silverberg, Senior Vice President, Personal Systems Division, Microsoft Corp. “We expect Windows 95 to become the premier personal computing games and multimedia platform. The support we have received from Creative Labs in the 3D and audio areas significantly strengthens the platform and helps us to achieve our long-term vision of a computer on every desk and in every home.”

The industry support for 3D Blaster demonstrates the software community’s understanding of how dramatically advanced 3D graphics acceleration will enhance the breadth of 3D titles that will soon be available, and how powerful 3D Blaster is as a platform for developing new titles that take full advantage of its advanced 3D capabilities. Initially 3D Blaster will be bundled with a select suite of 3D software titles authored specifically to take advantage of 3D Blaster, including EA/Bullfrog’s “Magic Carpet Plus,” Mindscape’s “Cybersled” and “Azreal’s Tear,” Papyrus’ “NASCAR,” PF Magic’s “Ballz Out!,” Looking Glass Technologies’ “Flight Unlimited.”

“Interplay has been a strong supporter of Creative’s Sound Blaster. We’ve decided to extend that support to Creative’s 3D Blaster because it will add a whole new level of realism to our software on the PC,” said Brian Fargo, president of Interplay. “Creative has the market presence, quality technology and channel strength to help the software community bring a whole new level of creativity to our products.”

Creative also has expanded its BlasterWare(TM) software program to encourage and assist development of game titles for 3D Blaster. Initial titles generated through the new BlasterWare program include PF Magic’s “Ballz Out!,” Fenris Wolf’s “Rebel Moon,” and Maverick Simulation’s “Crucial Axis.”

The Technology

3D Blaster is a graphics display card with hardware-accelerated 3D rasterization that brings workstation-level graphics performance to the PC at consumer pricing. A fully Plug-n-Play product, 3D Blaster delivers compelling 640×480 resolution by 16-bit color at an engaging 30 frames per second. While 3D Blaster is designed to support both the popular VL and PCI bus, the company is first targeting the largest installed base of systems — the 486-based PC with VL bus. Creative will provide a PCI-compatible version after the first of the year.

“3D gaming on the desktop will be one of the hottest technologies in 1996,” said Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies, a San Jose- based market research firm. “As the PC becomes more powerful and prominent within the home, it will take 3D gaming to new audiences. A company like Creative Labs, with their large installed base and extensive brand recognition, software support and channel presence, is well positioned to bring the 3D experience to the home PC.”

3D Blaster is unique in its ability to draw perspective correct texture mapped images. Unlike other systems, 3D Blaster presents a texture mapped image that is remarkably stable — it doesn’t warp, swim, shake or quiver in any distracting manner. The hardware supports various texture sizes and texture modes affording the game developer flexibility in game creation and seamless play for the game player. The system also features double buffered graphics, Z buffering, alpha transparency, hardware fogging and texture anti-aliasing.

The Product

The Creative Labs 3D Blaster card operates as a 2D Windows accelerator and 3D graphics accelerator. It comes with 2 megabytes of memory. The board is a Plug-n-Play system fully compatible with Windows 95, DOS and a variety of popular games and applications written to Windows.

Minimum system requirements suggested for use with the 3D Blaster include:

— IBM-compatible PC VESA VL bus (PCI to be available 1996)
— 486-DX2 running at 66 Mhz
— 4 MB RAM
— Windows 3.1 or higher

Pricing and Availability

The VL-bus version of 3D Blaster will be available in November, 1995, at an estimated street price of about $349 which includes a software library valued at over $250 of six next generation interactive titles from the world’s leading game developers. A PCI version of 3D Blaster will be available in the first quarter of 1996.

Creative Technology Ltd. develops, manufactures and markets a family of sound, video, software telephony multimedia products for PCs under the Blaster(TM) family name, and the ShareVision line of desktop video conferencing products for Macintoshes and PCs. The company’s Sound Blaster sound platform enables PCs to produce high-quality audio for entertainment, educational, music and productivity applications, and has been accepted as the industry standard sound platform for PC-based software.

Creative Technology Ltd. was incorporated in 1983 and is based in Singapore. Creative Technology’s U.S. subsidiaries include Creative Labs, Inc., E-mu Systems(R), Inc., Digicom Systems, Inc. and ShareVision(R) Technology, Inc. Creative also has other subsidiaries in Australia, China, Europe, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. The company’s stock is traded on Nasdaq under the symbol CREAF and on the Stock Exchange of Singapore.

Sound Blaster is a registered trademark and Blaster, 3D Blaster and BlasterWare are trademarks of Creative Technology Ltd. E-mu is a registered trademark of E-mu Systems, Inc. and ShareVision is a registered trademark of ShareVision Technology, Inc. All other products mentioned herein are trademarks of their respective owners and are hereby recognized as such.

CONTACT: Theresa Pulido of Creative Labs, Inc., 408-428-6600, ext. 6416; or Lisa Kimura of Copithorne & Bellows, 415-284-5200, ext. 209

(CREAF)

CO: Creative Technology Ltd. ST: California IN: CPR SU: PDT