#TurboDLDDemo v2 is Here
4 messages in this thread
PANACEA(R) OFFERS UPDATE TO FREE, FULLY FUNCTIONAL
DISPLAY & RENDERING DRIVER FOR AUTOCAD R12 & 3D STUDIO
LONDONDERRY, NH — March 15, 1994 — Panacea Inc. today announced
the availability of TurboDLDDemo(tm) v2.0, a FreeWare ADI 4.2
Display Driver for AutoCAD Release 12 and 3D Studio Release 3.
TurboDLDDemo provides unlimited full display and rendering
support for AutoCAD and 3D Studio. Additionally, TurboDLDDemo
offers backward compatibility with AutoCAD Releases 10/386 and
11, as well as with AutoShade 2.0 with RenderMan and 3D Studio
v1.x and v2.x. Lastly, TurboDLDDemo also gives AutoCAD users the
opportunity to sample the benefits of Panacea's latest Display
List Processing (DLP) technology and productivity enhancements.
TurboDLDDemo gives AutoCAD users a full 20 minutes per day to
evaluate Panacea's TurboDLDDeluxe display list acceleration and
user interface enhancements — which include TOTS(tm) (Tablet On
The Screen graphical icon menus), Real-Time Panning, The Big
Picture(tm) bird's eye view, the static MicroScope(tm), a Drawing
Viewer, a ZoomPreview(tm) spyglass, and much more — without the
inconvenience or annoyance of random, pop-up sales pitches or
interruptions. After the daily 20 minute demo time period has
expired, TurboDLDDemo reverts into a non-display list mode for
the rest of the day, still providing full ADI 4.2 support, but
without the performance and functionality benefits of
TurboDLDDeluxe.
In addition to supporting AutoCAD, TurboDLDDemo includes free
high resolution display and rendering support for all versions of
3D Studio. Full 3D Studio support is available at all times,
without any daily usage limit.
Panacea's Turbo DLD(R) software supports virtually all graphics
boards, including those based on VGA, SuperVGA, S3, 8514/A, TIGA,
XGA, Compaq QVision, IIT AGX, ATI Graphics Ultra, and Weitek
P9000 technologies. The driver is available free of charge
directly from Panacea via its BBS at (603) 432-5193, or it can be
found on CompuServe in the ACAD, ASOFT, and CADENCE Forums. Users
who are unable to obtain TurboDLDDemo via modem may visit their
local Panacea dealer or order a diskette version of the software
directly from Panacea for a $10.00 cost, refundable towards the
purchase of TurboDLDDeluxe.
Panacea Inc. is the world's leading provider of commercial and
OEM display drivers and software-only accelerators for graphics-
intensive applications. Panacea specializes in PC-based software
for graphics processors and graphics boards. Corporate
headquarters are located at 24 Orchard View Drive, Londonderry,
New Hampshire 03053, U.S.A. Phone: (800) 729-7420 or (603) 437-
5022. FAX: (603) 434-2461. Panacea's sales department can also be
Panacea's representative in Europe is Mentor Computer Systems,
Ltd., headquartered at Systems House, 11 Wigmore Lane, Stopsley,
Luton, LU2 8AA, United Kingdom. Phone: +44-582-483381, FAX: +44-
582-480733. In Australia, Panacea is represented by CADSource, of
Spring Hill, Queensland. Phone: +61-78390411, FAX: +61-78390117,
and in New Zealand by SealCorp Computer Products, of Mt. Eden,
Auckland. Phone: +64-93777661, FAX: +64-93660138.
# # #
How can an ADI 4.2 driver work with 3D Studio R3 when the 4.2 spec won't work
with the software?
John Tissavary (La Luna cie)
> How can an ADI 4.2 driver work with 3D Studio R3 when the 4.2 spec won't work
> with the software?
ADI drivers _should_ work with 3D Studio R3. I don't know how much
testing was done by Autodesk for this, but it is still available. ADI
drivers DO NOT provide the following features which are only
available via the Vibrant Inline drivers:
o Colored XOR-lines (Some ADI drivers have found 'patching'
techiniques to get around this limitation).
o Hi-/True-color Materials Display (ADI drivers can run in
hi-/true-color modes, but you don't get any of the rendered images
in hi-/true-color).
o Correct FLIC player support for all cards. The FLIC player
in 3D Studio uses a built-in library which attempts to autodetect
the VGA card, which works great for the hardware it can recognize,
but causes real problems for hardware it incorrectly identifies
or does not support. The Vibrant Inline driver in R3 has access to
the FLIC player and can be used any of the cards and resolutions
it supports–please note that 3D Studio still only uses 256 colors.
Hi-/True-color modes still only get 256 colors worth of data
playing FLICS. (Big problem–one of the main reasons for
creating the Inline driver).
o Faster draw-speed. The Vibrant Inline driver does not get it's
information via the ADI specification. It is treated as another
internal driver to 3D Studio and therefore has less overhead
on draw operations.
o The configuration for the Inline driver is also a bit easier
than most ADI drivers (no environment varibles, external cfgs,
etc).
o If you are using the Liquid Speed product (Vibrant's
software only accelerator for 3D Studio R3), your performance
increase is greater with the Inline driver active (we can
make certain assumptions about the behavior of the driver which
we can't do if you are using something other than the Inline
driver).
Vibrant's ADI drivers could work under R3, but in the newer versions of the ADI
drivers, we detect 3D Studio R3 and put up an error message suggesting that you
use the Inline drivers–the Inline driver is a better driver for 3D Studio R3.
Vibrant's ADI drivers do support R1 and R2 of 3D Studio, as well as
the other ADI products (ACAD R10/R11/R12, Shade, etc.). The Vibrant
ADI drivers include the XOR colored line work around, configurable
fonts (the problem with high-resolution materials editor if you don't
have a big enough font to read anything), and a small speed
improvement over other ADI drivers for 3D Studio R1/R2 (the precursor
to Liquid Speed).
I know that ADI drivers will work, but I was under the impression (from the <G>
man himself) that 4.2 was problematic with R3.
I also can't understand why anyone in their right mind would use an ADI driver
over the in-line model <g>.
John Tissavary (La Luna cie)