INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS & SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION
May 19, 1997
Table of Contents
• Important Notes
• Updating Your Thunder3D/TX•1152 ROM
• Installation Instructions
• Alternate Drawing Engines
• Compatibility
• Known Problems and Issues
• QuickDraw 3D and RAVE Support
• How Thunder 3D Works ...
• Customer Support
__________________________________________
Important Notes
• Do NOT install two drawing engines. It is not a supported configuration and may cause memory errors.
• Thunder 3D and Thunder TX•1152 provide 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 and Thunder TX•1152.
• The default drawing engine installed with the installer application is equal to the "Radius 3D Engine.nn" located in the "Alternate Drawing Engines" folder.
__________________________________________
Updating Your Thunder3D/TX•1152 ROM
To take advantage of the latest performance enhancements for your Thunder3D/TX•1152, you will need to update the ROM on the video card.
To update the ROM, follow these instructions:
1) Drag the "Thunder3D/TX•1152 ROM" file onto the "RadiusFlash" application.
2) The RadiusFlash application will present you with a list of slots by number and attempt to identify the installed 3D video card. The correct choice for this ROM will the card identified as "shorty".
3) Enter the number that corresponds to the card identified as "shorty" and hit "Return".
4) Hit the "f" key to flash your ROM
5) The application will will ask for confirmation. If you wish to update your ROM, hit the "y" key followed by a Return. If you do not wish to update your ROM, hit the "n" key followed by a Return.
6) If you entered "y", the software will then begin the process of upgrading your 3D card. Do NOT interrupt this process.
7) Wait for the application to report, "Flash was successful!!!" If the application does not quit automatically, select "Quit" from the File menu.
8) Restart your computer.
__________________________________________
Installation Instructions
1) Double-Click on the application "Double-Click Me".
2) The installer application will install the following:
Extensions Folder
Radius 3D QuickColor
Radius 3D Interface
Radius 3D Texture Config
Radius 3D Engine
3) Select the "Restart" button.
__________________________________________
Alternate Drawing Engines
A folder is included on the Thunder3D/TX•1152 Installer disk named, "Alternate Drawing Engines." These engines may increase performance, but may have compatibility issues with your configuration.
To use these drawing engines:
1) Remove the 3D Engine from the extensions folder.
2) Place your selected drawing engine inside the Extensions folder.
**The drawing engine does NOT need to be renamed nor does the CPU need to be restarted for it to work**
**Do NOT install two drawing engines in the Extensions folder. It is not a supported configuration and may cause memory errors**
__________________________________________
Compatibility
• Thunder 3D and Thunder TX•1152 are NOT compatible with Apple Macintosh 7200/70 and 7200/90 PCI
machines. Thunder 3D and Thunder TX•1152 are 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 and Thunder TX•1152 ARE compatible with the Apple 7200/120 and other machines based on this motherboard design.
• Thunder 3D and Thunder TX•1152 are NOT compatible with the DayStar Quad processor system.
• Thunder 3D and Thunder TX•1152 ARE 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 and Thunder TX•1152 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 Thunder TX•1152 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.
__________________________________________
Known Problems and Issues
Known problems and issues with the 1.0.7 release. Please visit our
internet web site at http://www.radius.com for the most recent information and
latest software and driver updates.
1) 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."
2) 2D textures may overwrite 3D textures.
3) Alpha blending (transparency) may not always image correctly.
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 and Thunder TX•1152 provide the best 3D performance in 16-bit (thousands) color mode.
6) The 1360x1024 resolution is really 1344x1024. This will be fixed in a later version of the ROM driver.
7) Due to the way that Thunder 3D and Thunder TX•1152 do double buffering in 16 bit color mode, text highlighting will not work correctly unless the "Radius 3D QuickColor" Init is loaded.
__________________________________________
QuickDraw 3D and RAVE Support
Thunder 3D and Thunder TX•1152 provide all standard RAVE capabilities and most optional
capabilities. The following are currently not supported.
1) Thunder 3D and Thunder TX•1152 are compatible with QuickDraw 3D v1.0.6, v1.5 and v1.5.1.
2) Memory and cached contexts are not supported.
3) 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.
4) Thunder 3D and Thunder TX•1152 support thirteen 3D contexts (accelerated 3D windows). Thunder 3D and Thunder TX•1152 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 and Thunder TX•1152 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.
5) Thunder 3D and Thunder TX•1152 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.
6) MipMapping is currently not supported.
7) OpenGL RAVE support is not provided.
__________________________________________
How Thunder 3D and Thunder TX•1152 Work ...
Thunder 3D and Thunder TX•1152 do not support some older SuperMac and Radius monitors.
Essentialy, Thunder 3D and Thunder TX•1152 support 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
Thunder 3D
Resolution 8 bit (256 Colors) 16 bit (Thousands) 32 bit (Millions)
