Creative Labs Announces Launch of 3D Blaster PCI

- Latest Graphics Display Card Gives Games Increased Realism & Interaction -

17th September 1996 - Creative Labs, the leading provider of multimedia and communications products for the PC, announced at its annual European Technology Forum in Marbella the launch of 3D Blaster PCI. 3D Blaster PCI accelerates compatible software to provide compelling and unrivaled game play. The software development community strongly supports 3D Blaster PCI, which accelerates some of the most exciting games of the year, including Quake and Euro'96.

3D Blaster PCI is a high performance add-in board that increases the excitement and visual realism of today's most advanced 3D games. Greater realism in games results from improved texturing, higher resolutions (of up to 800 x 600 and beyond), the use of 16-bit colour and support for special effects, such as transparency and 'fogging'. All this is achieved at real time frame rates.

The 'ultimate PC gaming experience' requires the ultimate PC games. Creative Labs has attracted wide industry support for 3D Blaster PCI from the world's leading software vendors and computer games developers. Recent additions have included Quake from id Software and Euro'96 from Gremlin Interactive.

Creative Labs is also at the leading edge of Microsoft's Direct3D and DirectDraw initiatives, ensuring full compatibility with the increasing number of games running under Windows 95. Furthermore, 3D Blaster PCI is equipped with outstanding Super VGA performance to support the latest 2D DOS titles.

Chris Boyce, graphics brand manager at Creative Labs Europe, commented, "3D acceleration has changed the PC graphics landscape completely. Whilst our competitors are still arguing about Winmarks, (2D acceleration), we're moving the market on. Windows is fast on all today's PCs, but many games are criticised and quickly discarded for being too slow. 3D performance, feature set and software support are what counts in the brave new world, and 3D Blaster PCI excels at all three."

Minimum system requirements suggested for use with 3D Blaster PCI are:

IBM© PC compatible

Pentium© 90 or higher

At least 8MB system memory

CD-ROM drive

PCI 2.0 bus slot

Windows 95

Supports standard VGA and multi-frequency monitors

Pricing and Availability Pricing is still to be confirmed, but is likely to be in the region of £199 inc VAT. 3D Blaster is expected to ship throughout Europe from October.

About Creative ...
Creative Technology, Ltd., is the world's leading provider of multimedia hardware and solutions for personal computers, including sound, graphics, communications and video conferencing products with its Sound Blaster technology adopted as the world-wide standard sound platform for PCs.

Founded in 1983, Creative Technology's corporate headquarters are based in Singapore with international subsidiaries and affiliate offices in China, Europe, South Korea, Australia, Malaysia, Japan, Taiwan and the US. The European head office is based at Ruscombe near Twyford in the UK. In January 1994, Creative opened its European operations and technical centre in Dublin, which provides telephone support for European customers in six languages. Creative Labs Europe has grown eight-fold in the past three years with subsidaries in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, UK, Benelux, Denmark and Sweden. The European operation currently employs around 450 staff.