Chromatic Mpact 2 video card: let's play 3D games using a MPEG2 (DVD) decoder DSP chip...
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- čas přidán 21. 07. 2024
- Let's meet Chromatic Mpact 2 - a quite rare video card released by Chromatic Research in 1997-1998. The whole concept it was to use a multipurpose DSP chip get 2D/3D functionality, MPEG2 decoding, digital audio output and more... Didn't end well from Chromatic Research.
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Software defined custom pipeline, card was ahead of its time.
As of current standards, it will be a chip made by SK Hynix. LG Semicon (Lucky + Gold Star) -> Hyundai Electronics (was in the same group as Hyundai Motor) -> Hynix(“Hy”undai Electro”nix”) -> SK Hynix
I know it has nothing to do with this, but I got a Goldstar microwave, with display and touch buttons, still going strong. It's from the 80s. Older than myself.
I just wanted to share it, no idea as to why. :)
Really fascinating! I never really understood all of the intricacies of graphics cards, and just how much they've changed over the years!
When this card was on sale in 1998 there were so many options: S3, Cirrus Logic, SiS, Trident, Permedia, Number 9 etc. And of course 3dfx, ATI, Matrox and nVidia.
Wow, an Mpact! Lovely card, I wish I could find one. They never show up for sale, I'm lucky to have my Permedia 2.
I got this Mpact card by chance. I found it on slot A Athlon K7 850Mhz PC. Didn't knew it was an Mpact, but the digital audio out made me curios enough to extract the card for a further examination...
Programmable graphics chip before shaders. With just a little bit more performance it could become a real competitor to fixed pipeline chips. I wonder if it would be possible to have more than one DSP on single card and how the performance would scale.
There are some articles about Mpact 2 chip as early as November 1996 - but the card was on the market in 1998, it was too late and this basically killed the entire company. If drivers would have been ready in late 1996 - it think this card could have been a good competitor for 3dfx Voodoo Rush which was 30% faster but it had compatibility problems with many games and no MPEG2 decoding.
Nice! Never heard of this card or company. Looks like it was way better than S3 or Cirrus Logic default video cards that came with new computers sold in 1997/1998. I actually played MDK on a AMD K5 PR200 (133Mhz) + S3 Virge GX 2MB.
Like a fever dream, I barely remember this era of hardware. I guess PCs were so weak that you needed additional hardware just to watch a DVD. IIRC, 512x384 performed better than 400x300 on the Permedia 2 due to something with the texture memory. I was using D3D wrappers for a lot of things until OpenGL 2.1 started getting used on eveything...maybe the late 2010s? Scitech GLDirect was worth the cost back in the these days of mega janky hardware.
Yes, back at mid 90s, late 90s you would need a decoder card to play DVDs as a Pentium II at 233 MHz was too weak for that task, however with the Pentium III 500 MHz you would be able to play DVDs by software decoding, with some screen tearing, but also at that time most video cards would start to include dvd acceleration (motion compensation) to help the cpu.
Explains why I remember that early dvd player were pretty expensive for only playing video.
@@Nordlicht05 Back then I didn't find DVD playback so spectacular. (for the money) I had good Sony flat screen + a Panasonic 6 head VCR and... original VHS tapes were good enough for a few more years.
@@max_MXX honestly. We never owned any dvd player ever. I think the first dvd capable machine was a pc around 2000
It's Barely better than a SiS 620 :v
I think SIS 620 it's better but also we are talking about a newer chip launched in 1999 or so.
SiS 6326 says hi.
@@explorer9049 yup :v/
I think you mean 350nm technology, 35nm would be very anachronistic 😂
Yes, my bad. It's 1996 after all... :)