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ATI Rage128 Architectural Overview
Architectural Overview and Features
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The ATI Rage 128 is a fully integrated 128 bit graphics and multimedia accelerator which combines industry-leading 3D and 2D acceleration with advanced multimedia capabilities.
Support for advanced memory technologies allows the Rage 128 to achieve its full performance potential. Conventional SDRAM at speeds of up to 100MHz on a 128-bit memory interface allows 1.6 GB/s of memory bandwidth.
The Rage 128 incorporates a 128-bit internal architecture to deliver incredible 2D and 3D performance. Coupled with advanced features such as depth-based fog, 32-bit Z-buffer, stencil buffer, and a powerful triangle setup engine, Rage 128 is ideal for both consumer and professional environments.
The Rage 128 includes optional support for both TV-out and video capture via the Rage Theater companion chip, or TV-out only via the ImpacTV2, enabling 'Broadcast PC' systems. An enhanced version of ATI's MPEG-2 motion compensation circuitry allows high-quality DVD without the need for dedicated hardware. The Rage 128 includes a video port with support for both ATI Multimedia Channel (AMC) and VIP 1.1, along with all proposed HDTV formats.
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- General Features
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- Comprehensive AGP support, including 2X mode
operation, Sideband Addressing, and AGP Texturing
(Execute mode).
- PCI version 2.1 with full bus mastering and
scatter / gather support.
- Fully PC 98 compliant.
- Full power management including PCI Power Management
registers.
- Bi-endian support for compliance on a variety
of processor platforms.
- High speed software interface optimized for
Pentium II systems
- Bus mastering of 2D & 3D display lists
- Direct walk of Direct3D vertex list
- Ultra-thin driver layer
- Triple 8-bit palette DAC with gamma correction
for true WYSIWYG color. Pixel rates up to 250MHz
(optional; 230MHz standard)
- Supports a variety of memory configurations
for bandwidths of up to 1.6 GB/sec:
- Single Data Rate (SDR) SDRAM at up to 100MHz
on a 128-bit interface (1.6 GB/s)
- SDR SDRAM at up to 143MHz on a 64-bit interface
(1.1 GB/s)
- Flexible graphics memory configurations: 2MB
up to 32MB SDRAM.
- DDC1 and DDC2B+ for plug and play monitors.
- Single chip solution in 0.25mm,2.5V CMOS technology,
with multiple package options.
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- 2D Acceleration
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- Highly optimized 128-bit engine.
- Hardware acceleration of Bitblt, Line Draw,
Polygon / Rectangle Fill, Bit Masking, Monochrome
Expansion, Panning/Scrolling, Scissoring, full
ROP support and h/w cursor (up to 64x64x2).
- Game acceleration including support for Microsoft's
DirectDraw: Double Buffering, Virtual Sprites,
Transparent Blit, and Masked Blit.
- Acceleration in 8/16/24/32 bpp modes.
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- 3D Acceleration
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- Enhanced 3 million triangle/s set-up engine
including pre-setup processor for backface culling.
- 8KB on-chip texture cache dramatically improves
large triangle performance.
- Superscalar rendering engine provides top 3D
performance.
- Complete 3D primitive support: points, lines,
triangles, lists, strips and quadrilaterals and
BLTs with Z compare.
- Comprehensive enhanced 3D feature set:
- Full screen or window double buffering for smooth
animation
- Hidden surface removal using 16, 24, or 32-bit
Z-buffering
- 8-bit stencil buffer
- Line and Edge anti-aliasing
- 4 bits of sub-pixel and sub-texel accuracy
- Gouraud and specular shaded polygons
- Perspectively correct mip-mapped texturing with
chroma-key support
- More efficient bilinear and trilinear texture
filtering
- Full support of Direct3D texture lighting
- Improved multitexture support
- Special effects such as complete alpha blending,
vertex and Z-based fog, video textures, texture
lighting, reflections, shadows, spotlights, LOD
biasing and texture morphing
- Dithering support in 16bpp for near 24bpp quality
in less memory
- Texture compression of up to 8:1 using vector
quantization (VQ)
- Support for RGBA32, RGBA16 and RGB16 render
targets
- Texture map modes: RGBA32, RGBA16, RGB16, RGB8,
ARGB4444, YUV444
- Compressed texture modes: YUV422, CLUT4 (CI4),
CLUT8 (CI8), VQ
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- Motion Video Acceleration
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- Smooth video scaling and enhanced YUV to RGB
color space conversion for full-screen / full-speed
video playback.
- Front and back end scalers plus capture port
scaler support multi-stream video for video conferencing
and other applications.
- 4-tap filtered upscaling in both horizontal
and vertical directions and filtered downscaling
give top quality playback.
- Enhanced line buffer allows vertical filtering
of native MPEG-2 size (720x480) and HDTV images.
- Integrated DVD / MPEG-2 decode including IDCT
and motion compensation for top quality DVD with
lowest CPU usage.
- Hardware subpicture decoder with interpolating
scaler and alpha compositor provide optimal DVD
subpicture quality
- Special filter circuitry eliminates video artifacts
caused by displaying interlaced video on non-interlaced
displays.
- Bi-directional bus mastering engine with full
YUV planar mode support for superior MPEG-2 and
video conferencing.
- Hardware mirroring for flipping video images
in video conferencing systems.
- Supports graphics and video keying for effective
overlay of video and graphics.
- Ability to genlock to any video signal eliminates
synchronization problems.
- YUV to RGB color space converter with support
for both packed and planar YUV:
- YUV422, YUV410, YUV420
- RGB32, RGB16/15
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- Video Port
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- Support for both VIP 1.1 and AMC (ATI Multimedia
Channel) allowing direct connection to popular
video upgrades such as:
- Hardware MPEG-2 / DVD player
- Digital Broadcast Satellite receiver
- Enhanced 16-bit video port allows support for
all proposed HDTV formats.
- Dual video ports allow simultaneous input of
two streams.
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- Optional Companion Chips
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- RAGE THEATER:
- NTSC/PAL encoder
- NTSC/PAL/SECAM decoder with Intercast and
closed captioning support
- S/PDIF Output
- ImpacTV2:
- May be designed as a population option, allowing
maximum flexibility.
- Both devices provide industry leading TV out:
- Meet or exceed all PC 98 requirements for TV
out
- Incorporate support for the Macrovision 7.01
analog copy protection standard
- Programmable flicker filter uses up to 6 taps
for optimum image quality
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- Software Features
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- Register-compatible with VGA standards, BIOS-compatible
with VESA Super VGA.
- Full Open Firmware (IEEE 1275) support.
- SGI level III OpenGL® licensee.
- Fully implements Write Combining for maximum
performance on processors which support this feature,
such as Pentium Pro and Pentium II.
- Full-featured yet simple Windows utilities:
- ATI DeskTop supports panning and scrolling
across a virtual workspace
- Calibration utility for WYSIWYG color
- Drivers meet Microsoft's rigorous WHQL criteria
and are suitable for systems which bear the "Designed
for WindowsNT and Windows95" logo.
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Software Support
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| SOFTWARE SUPPORT |
DOS |
Win 3.x |
Win 95 |
Win 98 |
NT 3.51 |
NT 4.0 |
NT 5.0 |
Mac OS |
OS/2 |
| 2D Software Support (Note 1) |
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| · Accelerated driver support |
VESA2 |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
| Video Software Support |
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| · Microsoft DirectDraw |
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Yes |
Yes |
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Yes |
Yes |
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| · Microsoft ActiveMovie/DirectShow
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Yes |
Yes |
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Yes |
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| · MPEG-1 software playback |
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Yes |
Yes |
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Yes |
Yes |
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| · DVD/MPEG-2 software playback |
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Yes |
Yes |
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Yes |
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| · QuickTime acceleration |
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Yes |
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| 3D Software Support |
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| · Microsoft Direct3D |
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Yes |
Yes |
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Yes |
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| · QuickDraw 3D RAVE |
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Yes |
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| · OpenGL® |
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Yes |
Yes |
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Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
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| · AGP |
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Yes |
Yes |
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4 |
Yes |
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1 Additional 3rd parties (including SCO and UNIXWARE); 2 Direct BIOS support; 4 NT 4.0 Service Pack 3 supports AGP devices, but does not provide support for AGP Texturing
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