Evans & Sutherland's New DYNAMICgeometry Architecture Delivers Maximum Performance on Upcoming Intel Pentium III Processor.

SALT LAKE CITY--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 17, 1999--

Software Ready to Ship With E&S AccelGALAXY Graphics Subsystems

Evans & Sutherland Computer Corp. (E&S(R)) (NASDAQ:ESCC) Wednesday announced an advanced software driver architecture for Intel's (R) Pentium(R) III processor-based workstations that will dynamically use multiple system resources to take full advantage of the microprocessor's vastly improved graphics processing ability.

Called DYNAMICgeometry(TM), E&S's new driver architecture can accelerate OpenGL geometry processing and data movement by simultaneously using Intel's Streaming SIMD Extensions, multiple system processors, and/or a hardware geometry engine, according to their availability.

Software drivers that take advantage of the new streaming SIMD instructions will be available for AccelGALAXY(TM) graphics subsystems from E&S immediately upon availability of the new processors. Support for multi-processor systems and on-board geometry engines will be available in the second quarter of 1999.

"When you buy a Pentium III processor-based system, you also get a geometry engine inside the microprocessor that gives 3D processing a tremendous boost. The question for users is, 'Does my graphics vendor make effective use of it.' We definitely make excellent use of it," said Jeffrey Dunn, division general manager of E&S workstation graphics.

"We characterize it as OpenGL at WARP speed, short for Wildly Accelerated Rendering Pipeline. Our redesigned pipeline will speed data movement and rendering to entirely new levels of performance. And this was no easy task. We began work on this architecture 18 months ago in concert with Intel's design and development of Pentium III processor. This is our graphics architecture of the future."

According to Andre Wolper, director of marketing, Intel Workstation Products Group, "E&S optimized its DYNAMICgeometry driver software for the Pentium III processor family in order to give professional graphics users blistering speed from their Intel-based workstations. This combination of Intel and E&S ingredients should meet the needs of the most demanding graphics applications."

The flexibility of DYNAMICgeometry allows geometry processing to scale automatically with future higher-performance microprocessors, with the addition of multiple processors, and with programmable geometry processors integrated into graphics cards. Intelligence built into the programmable driver architecture checks workstation resources.

If a Pentium III processor is present the driver software will use the streaming SIMD instructions, and if multiple processors are present it will use the streaming SIMD instructions in all of them.

When programmable-hardware geometry boards from E&S ship in the future, DYNAMICgeometry software will automatically use that capability in addition to SIMD capabilities. In this way processing loads are dynamically allocated in order to extract maximum graphics performance from the system.

In contrast, performance with most other geometry-processing methods does not increase with CPU speeds or with multiple CPUs. Graphics boards restricted to hardwire geometry processing offer a fixed level of performance that will fall short of, and inevitably be overtaken by architectures capable of using multiple workstation resources for processing.

"Many of our competitors have not done the work and would rather have users buy a redundant geometry engine to mitigate their software's inability to use the Pentium III processor effectively," said Rick Maule, E&S group vice president of workstations.

Evans & Sutherland's REALimage(TM)-based graphics subsystems, like the AccelGALAXY board, have gained favor with most major manufacturers of Intel Architecture-based workstations and major vendors of OpenGL applications. These include Compaq, Dell, Gateway, Hewlett Packard, Hitachi, Micron, Siemens Nixdorf, and others.

"E&S has demonstrated its commitment to immediately take advantage of the continuous processor advancements introduced by Intel," said Maule.

In July 1998, Intel and E&S jointly announced an agreement to accelerate development of high-end graphics and video subsystems for Intel-based workstations. The companies also announced that Intel had purchased $24 million of newly issued, nonvoting shares of E&S, representing an 8.2 percent ownership stake.

Evans & Sutherland develops and manufactures hardware and software to produce highly realistic 3D synthetic worlds. E&S business units deliver high-quality visual systems and graphics subsystems for professional desktop graphics applications, digital video, simulation, entertainment, and education.

Founded in 1968 with headquarters in Salt Lake City, E&S operates customer sales and support offices throughout the world.

Visit the E&S Web page at www.es.com.

Note to Editors: E&S, DYNAMICgeometry, AccelGALAXY, and REALimage are trademarks or registered trademarks of Evans & Sutherland Computer Corp., Salt Lake City. All other trade names or marks are the properties of their respective owners.