Software developers can achieve enhanced 3D performance for applications that use the floating-point-intensive geometry functions that are performed within Direct3D, the 3D graphics component responsible for transformation and lighting calculations, which is optimized for AMD's 3DNow!™ technology.

"Through our support for AMD's 3DNow!™ technology in Direct3D, software applications can take advantage of its powerful capabilities without additional effort on the part of developers," said Kevin Bachus, product manager of DirectX at Microsoft Corporation. "Applications written to Microsoft's new DirectX 6.0 software development kit will seamlessly take advantage of the faster geometry processing power of the 3DNow! technology found in the AMD-K6-2 processor."

"The AMD-K6-2 processor enables a new generation of high-performance desktop systems that advance the state of the art in 3D and multimedia computing," said Dana Krelle, AMD vice president of marketing, Computation Products Group. "The 3DNow!™ technology-optimized transform, clipping and lighting operations of DirectX 6.0 will provide performance boosts for AMD customers, partners, and end-users, as well as higher performance and faster-time-to-market for application developers."

A DirectX API is a layer of software that provides special functionality to a program independent of the underlying hardware. With this common interface, software developers do not have to create unique functionality with their applications if that functionality exists in the API. Using code that already exists helps developers speed time to market. Less testing is also required since API code is tested not only by the creator but also by the many developers using the API.

Microsoft's DirectX 6.0
The DirectX APIs is a group of technologies designed by Microsoft to make Windows®-based computers an ideal platform for running and displaying applications rich in multimedia elements such as full-color graphics, video, 3D animation, and surround sound. Built directly into the Microsoft® Windows family of operating systems, DirectX is an integral part of the Windows 95/98 and Windows NT® 5.0 operating systems, as well as Internet Explorer 4.0. DirectX components may also be automatically installed on a PC by advanced multimedia games and applications written for the Windows 95 and Windows 98 operating systems.

About 3DNow!™ Technology
3DNow! technology is the first innovation to the x86 processor architecture that significantly enhances 3D graphics, multimedia, and other floating point-intensive PC applications and enables the emerging "realistic computing platform." 3DNow! is a set of 21 new instructions that use SIMD (Single Instruction Multiple Data) and other performance enhancements to open the performance bottleneck in the 3D graphics pipeline between the host CPU and the 3D graphics accelerator card. 3DNow! technology accelerates the front-end physics and geometry functions of the 3D graphics pipeline to enable full performance of 3D graphics accelerators.

With its SIMD-style instructions and dual register execution pipelines, the AMD-K6-2 processor can deliver up to four floating point results per clock cycle. The AMD-K6-2/333 has a peak floating point performance of 1.333 Gigaflops, significantly greater than the 0.333-Gigaflop peak performance of a Pentium® II 333, or the 0.4-Gigaflop peak performance of a Pentium II 400. The AMD-K6-2/300 has a peak floating point performance of 1.2 Gigaflops, or four times the 3D processing power of a Pentium II 300, rated at peak performance of 0.3 Gigaflops.

With 3DNow!™ technology, more powerful hardware and software applications can bring a new level of 3D performance and realism to Windows compatible PCs. 3DNow!™ works hand-in-hand with leading 3D graphics accelerators to achieve faster frame rates on high-resolution scenes, improved physical modeling of real-world environments, realistic 3D graphics and images, and theater-quality audio and video. 3DNow! technology was defined and implemented with input from Microsoft, application developers, graphics vendors, and x86 processor suppliers, and has received enthusiastic industry support.

3DNow!™ technology is compatible with today's existing x86 software and requires no operating system support, thereby enabling 3DNow!™ technology-optimized applications to work with all existing operating systems.