Warp3D is a driver system that allows programmers to access 3D hardware in a general, transparent and abstract way. This access does not depend on the underlying graphics driver (like Picasso96 or CyberGraphics), and does also not depend on the presence of a certain 3D Hardware.

The flexible design with device drivers makes it possible to adapt Warp3D to any existing (and in fact, also non-exiting) Hard- and Sofrware-combination. Furthermore, Warp3D assures that the result will look the same on any system - be it a S3 ViRGE, a Permedia2 or any other chip. It is even possible to use it without any 3D hardware (alas, this is not yet available) via a special CPU only driver.

Modern games will need a fast and powerful CPU. Hence, Warp3D does only run on a 68040 or 68060 CPU with a built-in floating point unit, or a PowerPC. Both the 680x0-versions and the PPC-version are implemented as shared libraries. This makes them accessible to native programs on the 680x0, and for WarpOS-applications on the PowerPC side.

Warp3D is essentially the effort of three people.

Sam Jordan is the mental father of Warp3D. He had the idea for the whole project, and the original API design was also done by him. Sam should be sufficently known among Amiga fans for his WarpOS and his StormMesa port. Thomas Frieden and Hans-Jörg Frieden became "famous" for their ports of ADescent and Abuse. ADescent marked the historical spot as being the first ever hardware-accelerated game on the Amiga. The work on the ViRGE version of Descent was so educating that they can claim to be real experts for the chip.

Unfortunately the situation isn't getting much better. There is a new 3D Card available (the CyberVisionPPC/BVisionPPC), but still there are virtually no applications or games supporting 3D-Hardware. Some projects are in the making, but due to the lack of a universal driver for 3D Hardware, most of them were limited to one card or graphics system.

This is exactly the gap that Warp3D tries to fill. We feel that a universal driver for all graphics cards - including those that aren't even made - will motivate developers to use this new technology.

If you feel like telling us something (even when it's criticism), you should use one of the addresses below. Generally, it is not important to whom you write.

Sam Jordan	s.jordan@haage-partner.com
Hans-Jörg Frieden	hfrieden@uni-trier.de
Thomas Frieden	tfrieden@uni-trier.de