First post, by Stiletto
- Rank
- l33t++
So here's a pretty rare thing I never found, the recent Mac posts kicked up memories of it.
Around 2003 I came across a rumor that back in June 1999 Formac (an Apple peripheral/upgrade manufacturer) released the ProFormance III (aka ProFormance3), a video card based around the 3Dlabs Permedia3 Create! and during testing had released a wrapper to wrap 3dfx Glide to Apple's QuickTime 3D RAVE API.
"The wrapper was based on code from 3Dlabs (Permedia) (provider of the chipset on the Proformance3 card) - but much like other wrappers at the time, 3Dfx stopped the development of the wrapper before it shipped (both mac and PC versions). Somehow the German magazine, MacUP, had a preview version of the Glide-emulator, when they tested the Proformance3 card." - some guy on USENET.
I cannot currently dig up the MacUP.com review (if any, it may be buried at archive.org) but supposedly the June 1999 issue of MacUP magazine (Germany) offered an article reviewing the Formac Proformance III and comparing it in benchmarks to other Mac video adapters at the time - and this included 3dfx Glide testing.
Here's the XLR8YourMac review from the time:
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/Graphics/Proformance3/
Another review:
http://www.architosh.com/news/1999-07/0722-expo2.phtml
And a press release or two:
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Formac+Introduc … e...-a054884351
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/3Dlabs+and+Form … c...-a054884301
At the time (I was already late discovering this in 2003), I contacted Creative Europe for more information (Creative also had a 3Dlabs Permedia3 Create! based card), who directed me to contact 3Dlabs. 3DLabs told me that they weren't involved in developing a Glide emulator/wrapper, and that Formac may have developed something, but that I'd need to contact them - which is where I stopped.
Here's some of the USENET rumor-mongering from the time:
https://groups.google.com/d/topic/comp.sys.ma … Bte0/discussion
https://groups.google.com/d/topic/comp.sys.ma … bHdE/discussion
https://groups.google.com/d/topic/comp.sys.ma … yPCQ/discussion
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.sys.mac. … T2E/BybCXga6Bgo
I've often wondered if there wasn't some sort of confusion here between APIs regarding this card but I vaguely remember seeing info from Formac regarding this on a review page or on their website or something.
Anyhow, this was either a rumor... or vaporware.
Useful would be if someone could turn up (and/or translate) the 06/1999 article about the Formac ProFormance 3 in MacUP magazine.
"I see a little silhouette-o of a man, Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you
do the Fandango!" - Queen
Stiletto