Subject: M2 Conference from AOL (LONG!) Date: 3 May 1995 15:50:29 GMT Last night's M2 conference from AOL, scrubbed clean of extraneous comments. Lots of things that are fuzzy in the press releases are made clear within. Stephen3DO Our guest tonight is Sharon Grimshaw from 3DO. Sharon is the Group Product Manager for Development. Products and one of her primary responsibilities is managing the M2 technology. Sharon is using the ID of GuestOf3DO and is a first time AOLer. As many of you know, today was the first day that 3DO has really talked about M2. So tonight we would like to start out by having Sharon recap some of the highlights of what 3DO announced today and what is coming up as part of our roll out. After Sharon chats for a few minutes, then we will turn it over to the queue, and Sharon will try to answer all of your questions. So Sharon, welcome to your first chat in our Lounge! GuestOf3DO Hello everyone! Today's M2 announcement was a bi-coastal affair with briefings in NYC and Redwood City. We announced specifics of the M2 architecture and performance numbers as the first step in a three phase information disclosure that will take place over the next few months. Info to follow will include HW and SW partners, product specifications and launch plans. Some of the performance highlights include: the system is driven by a PowerPC 602 RISC processor running at 66MHz, the 3DO M2 custom graphics ASIC contains 10 custom coprocessors that drive audio, MPEG and the the M2 graphics engine. The system is capable of over 1,000,000 polygons per second peak performance, 700,000 polys/sec sustained with polys textured, z-buffered perspective corrected. The system has unified memeory arch. that can move up too528MB/sec. But M2 isn't just about raw polygon performance. What good is a fast engine without significantly improving the overall image quality? Improving the user experience? So, we've loaded M2 with great combination of graphics capabilities, which no other system has in combination. Incuding destination based, compressed texture mapping for higher resolution of reduced textures, Gouraud shading in HW, filtering (linear, bi-linear, tir-linear) to rid your games of the pixelated, blocky images like in DOOM 32X, and mip mapping, which works with filtering to create a new level of graphics realism. 3D perspective correction and Z buffering are supported in HW, too and did I mention 640x480 resolution and transparancy/blending for great special effects. All these mean photo-realistice graphics and with MPEG built-in you can expect top quality digital video, too. M2 will allow developers to play multiple simultaneous MPEG streams. And did I mention audio??? with 32 channels, a 66MHz DSP and support for 3D sound audio will really play an important roll in the overall game experience. So, with photrealistic graphics, VHS-quality video and theatre quailty sound, we believe M2 will easily leap frog current generation of 32-bit systems. Stephen3DO Wow, what an incredible bunch of info from Sharon. So let's start the question queue. Indigo2 FX I somehow feel cheated that my $52,000 SGI Indigo2Extreme got blown away by a toy! :) BDWINE Equate the m2 power to current computer technology. Pentium power or better? GuestOf3DO M2 technology is optimized for 3D graphics math perfomance is much higher than that of the Pentium at a fraction of the cost. ScottColli Aprox. how much is this M2 going to cost and when will I get one? Good question Scott. We have only announced technology specifications today. We will provide more info on pricing, product availability and launch plans in the coming months our HW partners determine the selling price of the console and the intro date. It's important for you to know the part we CAN control--the underlying technology--is on track. GUNDARK Is the tri-linear interpolation supported in hardware like NU64? Also can the system support real-time anti-aliasing and load management in hardware like NU64? GuestOf3DO Yes, all interplolation is supported in HW as is mip mapping. Kynorth How can the M2 possibly be affordable if MPEG is included?? MPEG alone costs $200. What cost saving measures have you done? GuestOf3DO Let's not confuse the cost of MPEG designed and delivered as an accessory with a low cost, highly integrated coprocessor in the M2 ASIC. We have designed a highly integrated system that will provide incredible performance and features with a very aggressively priced bill of materials. Gamer Paul What will the M2 control pad be like? GuestOf3DO Paul, you're the first to ask about the control pad! M2 systems will come with a new, cool 6 button control pad that will make flight sims and other new M2 games even more fun to play. CNazareth I read that the M2 would have 6MB of RAM. Is that in addition to the RAM on the present unit? Also will it expand on the 32k of NVRAM or do we have to get the TDK card. What is the total RAM on the M2 and will the M2 expand on the 32K of NVRAM? GuestOf3DO M2 is spec'd for 48Mbits of memory--that is 4MB SDRAM and 2MB ROM MacrosPlus How will the M2 fit on our 3DO? GuestOf3DO The M2 technology can be configured as the M2 accelorater, which we announced last year. The M2 accelorater will plug in to the expansion port of you current 3DO system. Micpea How does the sprite processor of the m2 compare to the Saturn and Play Station? GuestOf3DO The M2 performance is 7-10x that of the PlayStation and the Saturn. This is based on our own analysis and information that we gathered from SW developers working with those systems. ShawnRader Could you elaborate on some of the terms you used such as Gourand shading, Z-buffering, ect? GuestOf3DO Shawn, let me see if I can shed some light. Gouraud shading refers to the ability to blend the edges of two polygons colors and shading to create smoother edges. It's important to SW developers that features like G. shading and z-buffering are supported in HW becasue that way they get the power w/o the performance hit. Z-buffering is used to manage/track the placement of object in a 3D space. So, if you had a car in front of a tree, the Z-buffer would remove the hidden surfaces of the tree that were obsured by the car. In addition, z-buffer helps manage complex images as they intersect in space. InfoManBri Ok, we have heard the details on M2, but, how pwowerful exaclty (64 bit) will this thing be? And will it be used with the regualr 3DO, or will it be used differently? I mean, it plugs into 3DO, but is it an upgrade or a WHOLE new system? :( GuestOf3DO Oh, did I forget to say 64-bit architecture??? Shame on me! M2 is a full 64-bit system. The M2 technolgy can be put into product form in any number of ways: upgrade unit for current 3DOs stand alone console, arcade machine, set top terminal for network/cable. What the first M2 product configurations will be is determined by our HW partners. The important thing for you to know is that we ar eworking on the technology pieces necessary to deliver an upgrade and a standalone unit at the same time. ErinFritz3 What will be the difference between the upgrade and the standalone. Such as what components will be reused from the Opera (ie CD player, Ram, etc.) and what is the status on game save memory cards? GuestOf3DO Erin, the core M2 technology: 602, Graphics ASIC, memory arch. etc. are all the same. The accel. will use the CD drive on your current 3DO system. BOBG237 When will the marketing take the attuitued of take no prissoners, kick some butt forget being passive on 3do ads? We all know that Sega, Sony will have some major bucks in ads make 3do look bad when is there going price reduction? GuestOf3DO Well Bob, I can tell you what I hear on the inside. Panasonic views Sony as its primary market rival in all markets and all product categories. Panasonic will NOT lose the battle to Sony. Get ready to see Panasonic AND GoldStar roll up their sleeves and pull out the big automatic nuclear weapons! ULTRA64LVR Whaty kind of games are you going to have? I really want to see a 3D rendered fighting game with blood and fatalities and a cool simulation game like the professional ones at the airforce academy. GuestOf3DO Ultra, as we showed in demo segments at our breifings today, the level of game experince will increase signif. w/M2. At launch (and there after...) you will see all kinds of titles, including ports of some of your favorite arcade titles (just like in the arcade) and cool new native M2 titles in all genres like 3D fighting, flight sim., first person role play, sports, racing, etc. JohnDonld Does the M2 have a VGA, RGB, or HDTV video output? Also I thought that the M2 had 7 MB mem! GuestOf3DO John, don't know where you might have heard 7MB...maybe on line? :) RGB and HDTV are not part of the product spec on the first dleivery, but the architecture would be capable of supporting them with minor modifications. CalHoopFan How strong will the developer support be for M2? How many developers will support it? Like Sega and like Sony with 100's or more? GuestOf3DO Cal, we actually have great early support from our developers. We've assembled a launch team composed of some of the top devleoers in the industry. Names you could easiliy guess, if I was at liberty to reveal them. :) You will not only see great, well known arcade titles at launch, but we are adding more develoers ot the pool over the coming months to ensure we have a constant tiles at launch or Road Rash, Return Fire, etc. and growing library of M2 native titles over the 2nd, 3rd an d4th quarters after launch. You will see hot 3D fighting, flight sim, racing, action, role play type games. Games a true fan of 3DO would love to play. Now don't get me wrong, Putt-Putt type titles are part of the overall mix in our SW catalog, but we will lanch with a BANG, not a PUTT. :) White Worm Release date? Titles? When can you talk specifics? Is the onboard memory enough to compete with next generation PC and coin op games? GuestOf3DO You can expect to see next gen coin op and PC titles easilty ported to M2. In fact some our the arcade developers we're talking with think the M2 is even more powerful than current arcade systems. Madrose I just wanted to know how many (if any) games will you pack in with the M2? or is it to early to tell? GuestOf3DO Madrose, too early to tell. Our HW patners make those decisions, but they will have some cool titles to chose from! Arcade man How much power will the M2 be compared to the NU64, PSX, and Saturn? GuestOf3DO Arcade man, as I said earlier our internal tests and developer feedback show us a 7-10x performance win over the PSX and the Saturn. Based on what little Nintendo has actually stated publicly about the U64 we believe we are atleast 2-4x faster. Stephen3DO Sharon - we have to let you back to getting the M2 products out the door. So folks, lets thank our guest, Sharon Grimshaw for her detailed information regarding M2 tonight.