As well as being the first card of its kind to be available to consumers, 3D Blaster is the first product in Creative's 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, 3D Blaster has attracted broad industry support from the world's leading games developers, such as Interplay, EA/Bullfrog and more than 200 others, 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 with 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 amongst the nearly 200
software companies who are supporting 3D Blaster.
"Creative Labs 3D Blaster takes computer gaming to a new level. The 3D Blaster is optimised 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 belief that advanced 3D graphics acceleration will dramatically enhance the breadth of 3D titles soon coming to market. The industry's support also shows 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! and 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 has also expanded its BlasterWareT software programme to encourage and assist development of games 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 640x480 resolution by
16-bit colour 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 its 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 games developer flexibility in games 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 are:
Pricing and Availability
3D Blaster is expected to ship in the UK from November 1995. Pricing is still to be
confirmed but is likely to be between £199 and £249 ex VAT.
About Creative...
Creative Labs UK is a subsidiary of Creative Technology, the world leader in the
development, manufacture and marketing of multimedia products for PCs. Best
known for establishing its Sound Blaster system as the industry standard for PC
audio - with sales of over 1 million a month - Creative also leads the market in
multimedia upgrade kits, video boards and voice recognition technology.
Creative Technology was founded in 1981 and is based in Singapore. The company's subsidiaries include Creative Labs in China, Europe, Japan, Taiwan and the US. The European head office is based at Ruscombe, near Twyford. In January 1994, Creative opened its technical support group in Dublin, which provides telephone support to French, German and English-speaking customers across Europe. Creative's stock is traded on the NASDAQ exchange, with sales in FY 1995 of $1202.3 million - a 83% increase on 1994.
Copyright ©1995, 1996
Creative Labs, Inc.