What is Radius Thunder 3D Driver 1.0.2, 1.0.7 (+ROM update)?

Thunder 3D 1.0.2 Software

INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS & SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION

January 27, 1997

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Table of Contents

Important Notes

• Installation Instructions
• Compatibility
• Known Problems and Issues
• QuickDraw 3D and RAVE Support
• How Thunder 3D Works ...
• Customer Support

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Important Notes

• Thunder 3D provides the best 3D performance in the 16 bit (thousands) color depth.
• 3D programs often run best on 7500, 7600, 8500, 8600, 9500, 9600 and similar systems with "interleaved" (128 bit wide) memory configurations. Interleaved 128-bit memory configurations can improve 3D performance up to 50%.
• Radius does not recommend using VM (Virtual Memory) with Thunder 3D.

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Installation Instructions

1) Double-Click on the application "Double-Click Me".

2) The installer application will install the following into your Extensions Folder:

• Radius 3D QuickColor
• Radius 3D Texture Config
• Radius 3D Engine

3) Select the "Restart" button.

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Compatibility

•  Thunder 3D is NOT compatible with Apple Macintosh 7200/70 and 7200/90 PCI machines. Thunder 3D is also not compatible with Power Computing (and other machines) based on certain versions of the Catalyst motherboard. We are working with the various parties to provide a solution to this problem.
• Thunder 3D IS compatible with the Apple 7200/120 and other machines based on this motherboard design.
• Thunder 3D is NOT compatible with the DayStar Quad processor system.
• Thunder 3D IS compatible with the DayStar Dual  processor system which includes Daystar and Apple MP systems (Dual-Processor).
• Thunder 3D does NOT work "behind" the DEC PCI bridge chip used on some SuperMac (UMAX) systems. In these systems, two of the slots are connected directly to the Apple PCI Bridge chip (Bandit) and the other (four) slots are connected to the  DEC PCI bridge chip. Please use Thunder 3D in the direct slots which are the top two slots in the system.
• The MacOS needs certain OpenFirmware patches stored in NVRAM (parameter RAM) to  properly configure and load the Thunder 3D driver from its flash PROM. If you reset your NVRAM, Thunder 3D may not boot (video will not be displayed) the first time after the NVRAM reset. However, the patches are installed early in the boot processes. Subsequent reboots will configure Thunder 3D and load the driver from the flash PROM.
• 1920x1080 was listed as an available resolution in some early Thunder 3D brochures and press releases. Unfortunately, Thunder 3D does not support the 1920x1080 resolution.

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Known Problems and Issues

1. Known problems and issues with the 1.0.2 release. Please visit our internet web site at http://www.radius.com  for the most recent information and latest software and driver updates.
2. 2D textures may overwrite 3D textures.
3. Alpha blending (transparency) sometimes doesn't work and transparent textures show up as black.
4. 3D bitmaps may have a column of pixels replicated due to floating point rounding errors
5. 3D Acceleration in 32 bit (millions of colors) mode with double-buffering active, will be slower than 16-bit color and may show tearing when rotating 3D models.  Thunder 3D provides the best 3D performance in 16-bit (thousands) color mode.
6. Bilinear texture filtering is currently hard coded because until recently with QuickDraw 3D 1.5 there was not way to set the filtering mode from QuickDraw 3D. Since most applications don't have a way for the user to set the mode we have hard coded the best looking texture mode. However some of the lower quality filtering modes are much faster. A subsequent release will support all (three) texture filter modes.
7. The 1360x1024 resolution is really 1344x1024. This will be fixed in a later version of the ROM driver.
8. Due to the way that Thunder 3D does double buffering in 16 bit color mode, text highlighting will not work correctly unless the "Radius 3D QuickColor" Init is loaded.
9. Resolution or color depth changes while 3D is running can produce strange and unexpected results. We suggest that you do not change resolutions or color depths while 3D is "active."
10. Thunder 3D sometimes flickers when scrolling text. We are aware of this and are working to solve this problem.

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QuickDraw 3D and RAVE Support

1. Thunder 3D provides all standard RAVE capabilities and most optional capabilities. The following are currently not supported.
2. Thunder 3D is compatible with QuickDraw 3D v1.0.6 and v1.5.
3. Memory and cached contexts are not supported.
4. Texture depths supported are 1, 16, and 32 bit with or without an alpha channel. In the future 4 and 8 bit palletized textures will be supported. However the texture allocator and loader will probably convert them to 16 bit textures.
5. Thunder 3D supports thirteen 3D contexts (accelerated 3D windows).
6. Thunder 3D returns the correct error code when it runs out of contexts but many applications do not process the return correctly and crash. Others silently invoke Apple's software interactive renderer. Each Thunder 3D context currently takes 512 KB of pool allocated contiguous memory for DMA buffers. The driver takes 256 KB of pool allocated contiguous memory for DMA buffers. These numbers may change in future releases.
7. Thunder 3D returns the following RAVE Engine Gestalt:

• ASCIINameLength: 16
• ASCIIName: Radius 3D Engine
• VendorID: 2
• EngineID: 1
• Revision: 1
• Texture Memory available: 1
• Fast Texture Memory available: 1
• FastFeatures:
•     Antialiasing
•   OptionalFeatures:
•     DeepZ
•     Texture
•     Blend
•     BlendAlpha
•     Antialias

Note that the Texture Memory available numbers are wrong. Anti-aliasing is currently not supported.

• MipMapping is currently not supported.
• OpenGL RAVE support is not provided.

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How Thunder 3D Works ...

Thunder 3D does not support some older SuperMac and Radius monitors. Essentialy, Thunder 3D supports the same monitors that Apple's PCI machines support with built in video (BIV), with the exception for NTSC, PAL, and a few other (not often used) monitor types.

On Apple's Built in Video, a monitor is identifed by a 3 bit standard sense code and a 6 bit extended sense code. The following table lists the currently supported sense codes, the associated monitor type, and the type of monitor sync supported.

Apple Built in Video sense codes

Standard  Extended  Monitor               Sync          

Sense     Sense   Type

Type

--------  -------- -------               ----

0         0x00      Apple 21" Color       H- and V-

1         0x14   Apple 15" Portrait Mono H- and V-

3       0x25   Apple 21" Mono (Kong)    H- and V-

5         0x1E   Apple 15" Portrait RGB   H- and V-

6       0x2B   Apple 13" (Hi-Res) RGB   Composite

6       0x03   13" Multi Scan           H- and V-

6       0x0B   17" Multi Scan           H- and V-

6       0x23   21" Multi Scan           H- and V-

7       0x17   VGA                      Sync on Green

7       0x2D   Apple 16" RGB            H- and V-

7       0x3A   19" 1024x768             H- and V-

7       0x3B   19" 1024x768             H- and V-

Resolutions and Acceleration Modes available at different color depths

 

Resolution       8 bit (256 Colors)     16 bit (Thousands)       32 bit (Millions)

------------     ------------------     ------------------       -----------------

640 x 480               2D Only            2D / 3D                 2D / 3D

832 x 624               2D Only            2D / 3D                 2D / 3D

1024 x 768              2D Only            2D / 3D                 2D / 3D

1152 x 870              2D Only            2D / 3D                 2D / 3D

1280 x 1024             2D Only            2D / 3D                 2D / 3D*

1344 x 1024             2D Only            2D / 3D                 2D / 3D*

1600 x 1200             2D Only            2D / 3D                 2D / 3D*

 

* Note: 3D acceleration will be single-buffered ONLY

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Customer Support

If you have a problem you cannot resolve through your Radius Authorized Reseller, contact Radius Customer Support by phone at +1 (408) 541-5700, Monday through Friday, 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time, or by FAX at +1 (408) 541-5008.

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Download Radius Thunder 3D Driver 1.0.2, 1.0.7 (+ROM update) for Mac

Architecture

68K + PPC (FAT)

System Requirements

From Mac OS 7.5 up to Mac OS 8.6

Compatibility notes

Emulating this? It could probably run under: SheepShaver