Notice

The information in this document is subject to change in order to improve reliability, design, or function without prior notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of this company.

In no event will we be liable for direct, indirect, special, incidental, or consequential damages arising out of the use or the inability to use the product or documentation, even if advised of the possibility of such damages.

No part of this reference manual may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of company.

Trademark Acknowledgments

3DImge9750/9850 and TVGA are registered trademarks of Trident Microsystems, Inc.

AutoCAD and Autoshade are trademarks of Autodesk,Inc.

VESA is a trademark of Video Electronics Standards Association.

IBM is a registered trademark and PS/2 and OS/2 are trademarks of International Business Machines Corp.

Pentium is a trademark of Intel Corp.

Microsoft, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corp.

RAMDAC is a trademark of Brooktree Corporation.

All other product names or trademarks are property of their respective owners.

Version 1.2

This device complies with part 15 of the FCC Rules. Operation is subject to the following two conditions:

(1) this device may not cause harmful interference, and

(2) this device must accept any interference received, including

interference that may cause undesired operation.

FCC WARNING

This equipment has been tested and found to comply with the limits for a Class B digital device, pursuant to Part 15 of the FCC Rules. These limits are designed to provide reasonable protection against harmful interference in a residential installation.

This equipment generates, uses and can radiate radio frequency energy and, if not installed and used in accordance with the instructions, may cause harmful interference to radio communications.

However, there is no guarantee that interference will not occur in a particular installation. If this equipment does cause harmful interference to radio or television reception, which can be determined by turning the equipment off and on, the user is encouraged to try to correct the interference by one or more of the following measures:

* Reorient or relocate the receiving antenna.

* Increase the separation between the equipment and receiver.

* Connect the equipment into an outlet on a circuit different from that

to which the receiver is connected.

* Consult the dealer or an experienced radio/TV technician for help.

Shielded cables and I/O cords must be used for this equipment to comply with relevant FCC regulations.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Features 1

Compatibility 1

Resolution and Color Selection 2

3D and 2D GUI Accelerator 2

VESA DPMS and VESA DDC2B supported 2

Virtual Screen 2

DCI and DirectDraw Supported 3

Live Video Capture 3

Software MPEG Playback 3

Extended VGA mode support 3

TV Out for AG210 (Optional) 5

Microsoft Windows 3.1 6

Installation 6

Screen Control 7

Microsoft Windows 95 8

Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 9

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) 10

Introduction

Thank you for purchasing this 3DImge9750/9850 3D/2D Graphical User Interface (GUI) accelerator adapter. This adapter works with Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) bus of your system to bring you high resolution, true color capability, high performance, and compatibility with most software and hardware.

The adapter efficient video acceleration allows user to play MPEG full-motion video CD with Software only. 3DImge9750/9850 turns your PC into a high-powered 3D and 2D graphics-capable machine with PC display capabilities, you can enjoy outstanding 3D performance while playing games or adding 3D elements to design or multimedia projects.

Features

Supports for AGP is limited to 133MHz sideband operation. (For AV985)

Supports extensive high-performance 3D functionality.

Accelerates the most frequently used 2D GUI/video operations.

Supports up to 1280x1024x64K Hi-colors mode using 4MB on board. Supports up to 1024x768x64K Hi-colors mode using 2MB of video memory.

Supports VESA Display Power management Signaling (DPMS) and VESA DDC 2B standards available on most of the VGA, SVGA and multisync monitor.

Software MPEG playback or live video capture capable.

Supports the standard IBM Feature Connector (FC) and Video Module Interface (VMI) Host Connector for sending graphics data to an add-on video controller.

Compatibility

This 3D/2D Graphical User Interface (GUI) accelerator adapter is IBM VGA compatible on BIOS, register, and hardware. This adapter works only with a Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) bus slot.

Resolution and Color Selection

Supports up to 1024x768 in 256, 32K, 64K and 16M colors non-interlaced

Supports 1280x1024 in 256, 32K and 64K colors non-interlaced

Supports 1600x1200 in 256 colors non-interlaced

80 column text modes in 30, 43 and 60 rows

132 column text modes in 25, 30, 43 and 60 rows

3D and 2D GUI Accelerator

Accelerates the most frequently used 2D functions in todays graphics-intensive environments plus complete 3D GUI acceleration:

Complete 3D primitive support

Texture mapping

Gouraud Shading for smooth shading

Alpha blending for transparency effects

Fog

Z-buffering at 16/32 bit-per-pixel

Page flipping for double and triple buffering for smooth animation effects

VESA DPMS and VESA DDC2B supported

Supports VESA Display Power management Signaling (DPMS) which decreases energy consumption when used with a monitor that meets the VESA standards for power management. Supports VESA DDC 2B standards for automatically selecting the correct display setup on a monitor that meets the VESA DDC standard.

Virtual Screen

The Virtual Screen features takes advantage of un-used display memory by expanding the display area into the off-screen area; this feature allows the user to make effective use of a display screen larger than the standard 640x480, 800x600 or 1024x768 resolutions.

DCI and DirectDraw Supported

Supports DCI for Windows 3.1x and DirectDraw for Windows 95/98 for enhancement of display quality and playback performance during software MPEG video playback. Both DCI for Windows 3.1x and DirectDraw for Windows 95/98 are memory manger for video memory. Using such memory manager for video manger, a program can manipulate video memory with ease, taking full advantage of the blitting and color decompressing capabilities of 3DImge9750/9850 video hardware.

Live Video Capture

Live video capture is the process of accepting video data from an outside source and writing it to the frame buffer from where it can be displayed or stored. This process is supported by 3DImge9750/9850 through the Feature Connector and the Video Module Interface(VMI) Host Connector.

Software MPEG Playback

The 3DImge9750/9850 support software MPEG Playback. Full-motion software MPEG video playback through 3DImge9750/9850s fast video accelerator is available with the installation of a software MPEG player. You can use XingMPEG Player, MediaMatics MPEG Arcade Player or other program to drive the 3DImge9750/9850 DCI hardware to decode MPEG *.mpg, *.mpv, *.vbs and Video CD *.dat format CD titles, gets high performance of MPEG full-motion Video playback.

Extended VGA mode support

TV Out for AV985 (Optional)

The 3DImge9850 is capable of displaying all standard and some extended VGA video modes on an NTSC or PAL TV. Resolutions up to 640x480 can be displayed on NTSC TVs; resolutions up to 800x600 can be displayed on PAL TVs. Extra features are built-in to reduce line flickering and to vertically scale the image for TV display.

The image can be displayed on a TV display in either overscan mode, as in normal TV displays where the image fills the entire screen, or in underscan mode as is done in normal VGA monitors where the image edges are visible with a dark space between them and the monitors edges.

Microsoft Windows 3.1

Installation

The graphic installation program (TINSTALL) supports a simple 6 step installation procedure for the display driver setup program, the power management program and the UNinstall program.

To use TINSTALL, follow the 6 steps below:

Ensure that MS Windows 3.1 is up and running properly, using the standard VGA driver.

Select the MAIN group in Program Manager.

Click on FILE or press ALT + F.

Click on RUN or press R to select command line.

Type in X:AV985Win31TINSTALL and press Enter.

A menu will appear, presenting a choice of Express Installation or Custom Installation.

Express Installation

This is a quick and decision free installation. Display drivers will be copied into the TRIDENT.SGI directory and Utility files will be copied into the TRIDENT.UTL directory. Once all files are copied, a program group called DISPLAY DRIVER AND UTILITIES will be created.

Custom Installation

program groups where the icons will be created. Create a new group to place the utility icons or select from pre-existing groups (e.g. main, applications, accessories etc.).

When all necessary files are copied and a group name is selected, the TINSTALL program will create three icons:

a. Screen Control (Used to configure display drivers).

b. DPMS (Used for power management configurations).

c.  UNinstall (Used to delete the installed TRIDENT drivers).

Display driver sets of the same version number will replace the existing one.

Screen Control

The Screen Control panel contains controls for setting screen resolution, color depth, font size, and refresh rate. Not all combinations of screen resolution, color depth, font size, and refresh rate are attainable.

Color depths of 16, 256, 64K, or 16.7M colors can be selected by clicking next to the desired option. Color depth determines the number of colors that may be simultaneously displayed on the screen. The selected color depth determines the possible resolutions.

Screen resolutions of 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x1024 or 1600x1200 can be selected by clicking next to the available options. The virtual screen size is automatically adjusted to be at least as large as the selected screen resolution.

Available refresh rates are dependent on the selected color depth and resolution. The Back to Default option is used to reset the refresh rate to the factory default value in case your monitor does not support a high refresh rate.

Configuring the Display Driver

Select the color depth first.

Select the resolution.

Select the font size (if available as an option).

Select the refresh rate.

Click on OK. If the current driver does not support the selected configuration, Windows will have to be restarted.

Microsoft Windows 95

The following steps describe how to install Windows 95 display drivers:

ensure that MS Windows 95 is up and running properly using the Trident SVGA driver that it has detected.

Open the My Computer program group and select the Control Panel icon.

Select the Display icon and then select the Settings page.

Select either the Change Display Type or the Advanced Properties selection bar, and then select the Change button next to Adapter Type.

On the Select Device page, select the Have Disk button to install the Trident display driver from the CD title.

After the Have Disk button is selected, an Install From Disk window will appear. Select the Browse button to browse the directory X:AV985WIN95 of your CD drive, where X: stands for the drive letter of your CD drive in your system.

Once in this directory, the files TRIDENT.INF (or other .INF file) will appear under file name list. Select OK to return to the Install From Disk windows. Under the statement Copy manufacturers files from, the lineX:AV985WIN95 should appear. Select OK to start installing the driver files from the CD drive.

After the files has been copied from the CD drive to the hard drive, a Select device window will appear. Under Models, the line Trident Imge 9750(9850) linear accelerated for AGP will now be listed.

Select the OK button to close the Select Device window and to select the Color Palette Desktop Area and Refresh Rate of your choice under the Trident accelerated driver.

Once the desired color palette (the number of colors), desktop area (resolution) and refresh rate has been chosen, the Windows 95 system will be re-started using the Trident accelerated driver.

Microsoft Windows NT 4.0

The following steps describe how to install Windows NT 4.0 display drivers:

Select the Display icon in control panel and then select the Settings page.

Select Display Type button in the Settings page.

Select Change button from the Adapter type section.

Select Have Disk button from the Change Display page.

Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 will prompt you for the correct path where the Trident drivers are located. Enter the path X:AV985NT40 where X: is the drive where CD of the 3DImge9750/9850 Utility Drivers CD title has been inserted.

If the driver Trident Video Accelerator is listed under the Display list, Select the OK button to continue.

Once the driver files are copied, Restart Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 for the changes to take effect.

Select the desired color palette (the number of colors), desktop area (resolution), and refresh frequency in the settings page of Display Properties and then select the Test button in the same page to determine whether your selection works properly. Select Apply to active the selected mode.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q1:Why do we need 3D graphics capability in our PC?

A1:  3D technology is becoming increasingly important (and common) not only in games, but also in other applications such as VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language), which allows 3D scene descriptions in Web applications. 3D technology is used for image editing, modeling, and an increasing number of in home and business applications. In games, as well as other applications, 3D acceleration not only allows better visual qualities and more realistic scenery attributes than software alone, but it also allows a higher frame rate, which translates into a more interactive experience for the end users.

Q2: What does Rendering Engine mean?

A2:  Rendering Engine generically applies to the part of the graphics engine that draws 3D primitives, usually triangles. In most implementations, the rendering engine is responsible for interpolation of edges and 'filling in' the triangle.

Q3: What does the set-up engine do in a graphics controller?

A3:  A set-up engine allows drivers to pass triangles in the form of raw vertex information; whereas, most common designs force triangles to be pre-processed for the rendering engine in terms of delta values for edges, color, and texture.

Q4: Why does a 3D graphics chip need to have both a rendering engine and a setup engine?

A4: Any 3D application, a game, VRML, or modeling package, can benefit from 3D rendering. This is especially true of applications that use texturing extensively, because texturing and texture filtering are very intensive operations at the pixel level in terms of CPU operations and demands for memory bandwidth. Without a set-up engine in a graphics

controller, the CPU has to calculate the delta values for edges, color, and textures; the drivers need to handle ten (10) times more extensive data. This results in slower 3D pipeline operations between the CPU and the graphics controller.

Q5: If we use powerful CPUs, such as a Pentium 200, can a standard 2D graphics card achieve 3D performance?

A5:  Yes and no. Software rendering can take advantage of 'tricks' learned by force of necessity through years of trial and error. With such stratagems, the speed of software rendering for simple scenes can approach that of low-level hardware 3D rendering. On the other hand, as scenes become more complex (or frame sizes become larger), there are conflicts between using the CPU for high-level game logic, geometry, lighting, and rendering, all of which increase their demands. No current CPU or system can perform advanced quality-enhancements (bilinear filtering and alpha blending) in real time. Even general case texture mapping with RGB lighting is too much for the current CPU generation.

Q6: What does 'software 3D' mean ?

A6: Software 3D is generally used to mean using non-specific (2D) hardware in conjunction with the CPU to render for 3D applications. Some of these techniques allow usable 3D applications when high-powered and/or MMX-equipped CPU's are employed along with special-case software optimization techniques. As stated above, SW 3D can achieve credible results with today's (software optimized) applications, but the rising popularity of good 3D hardware at the consumer price level is inexorably compelling the public to expect hardware level scene enhancements and frame rates.

Q7:  What is 3DImge9750/9850?

A7: The 3DImge9750/9850 is one of the first of the 'second generation' 3D controllers which will catapult 3D applications of all types into the PC mainstream by providing the feature set and performance necessary for

compelling 3D applications. It does this by combining proven VGA, video, and graphics acceleration with an advanced 3D rendering core including a set-up engine and a full 3D feature set.

Q8: Why should the customer choose Trident 3DImge9750/9850 over other alternatives?

A8:  As stated above, the 3DImge9750/9850 is second generation. This means that it combines the full feature sets often seen in first generation designs with the essential elements that were missing in those designs:

High performance 3D achieved by innovative design

Careful attention to system level integration

Aggressive use of existing and recently developed technology, such as single-cycle EDO and SGRAM memory interfaces

Though it is possible that individual competitive parts may beat the 3DImge9750/9850 in isolated areas of comparison, the 3DImge9750 /9850 represents an overall competency in all areas, with excellence in some important ones, such as 3D and video, that make it the best choice on the market today for both consumer and commercial applications.