Sierra Rendition Graphics Video Card Announced

Sierra are getting into the video card business and appear to be backing Rendition as the graphics chip of choice. The upcoming card will be bundled with IndyCar Racing II and two other Rendition-optimized titles and will use the V1000 Rendition Verite chip with 4MB of EDO video RAM. The card will be manufactured by Canopus.

Check out the article from GameCenter below:

Gamers who secretly salivate at the thought of running their favorite titles with the aid of a 3D accelerator may finally be convinced to take the 3D leap now that game giant Sierra On-Line has given Rendition’s Vérité V1000 3D graphics processor the ultimate blessing. Sierra plans to endorse Rendition’s 3D solution by selling a graphics board based on the Vérité chip. Sound crazy? Not to Sierra; this is the second time Sierra has peddled hardware to create a standard and move units of its own software.

“It’s a little-known fact that Sierra helped launch and sell the Ad Lib card when sound cards were in their infancy. We were committing to a standard then, and we see the same opportunity now,” said Scott Fasser, product manager for what Sierra has dubbed the Screamin’ 3D Card. “There are some cards out there that make things look better but actually slow down the game. We want to help set the standard by putting our name behind a card that we think will give gamers the best experience.”

The Screamin’ 3D Card will be manufactured by Canopus Corporation of San Jose, California, a division of Canopus, Ltd., headquartered in Kobe, Japan. Sierra will market and distribute the board. In fact, Sierra plans to bundle the card with three accelerated Sierra games –IndyCar Racing II; Fast Attack; and the not-yet-released robot combat game, Cyber Gladiators–and ship the package in early November for less than $300. While Fasser claims the board won’t prompt Sierra to crank out more 3D games than are planned to support it, he points out that Sierra has already committed itself to developing a greater number of 3D action titles that are well-suited to the Screamin’ 3D. Take Cyber Gladiators: Fasser says it will “set the standard for fighting games and will look great with or without the card.” Another likely candidate is King’s Quest 8, which will be the first 3D installment in this age-old adventure series.

Accelerator cards, such as the Screamin’ 3D–shipping with 4MB of EDO dynamic RAM–take much of the rendering process away from your system’s central processing unit (CPU), lighting a fire under the frame and refresh rates of game graphics. You end up getting a smoother, more detailed game without sacrificing speed and playability. “The boards don’t do a whole lot for a game like Phantasmagoria, which is essentially just video playback,” Fasser said. “But load up a flight sim or an action game like Quake, and it’s a whole different experience.”

Fasser insists Sierra has no plans to become a hardware company or to compete with other board companies, such as Creative Labs and Integraph, that are also producing Rendition-based boards. “All we want to do is help set a direction, and if gamers perceive another company’s Rendition-based board as the one to buy, that’s fine with us.”