ATI Rage series
The ATI Rage (stylized as RAGE or rage) is a series of graphics chipsets developed by ATI Technologies offering graphical user interface (GUI) 2D acceleration, video acceleration, and 3D acceleration developed by ATI Technologies. It is the successor to the ATI Mach series of 2D accelerators. The original 3D RAGE (also known as Mach64 GT) chip was based upon a Mach64 2D core with new 3D functionality and MPEG-1 acceleration. The 3D RAGE was released in April 1996. The 3D RAGE was used in ATI's 3D Xpression video board. Additionally, this chip was found integrated into the IBM Aptiva 2176 line with the Stealth case, and came with a Free Copy of MechWarrior 2: 31st Century Combat that only worked with this graphics chip to showcase its abilities. The memory configuration on this integrated chip was 2 Megabytes. The second generation Rage (aka Mach64 GT-B) offered roughly two times greater 3D performance. Its graphics processor was based again on a re-engineered Mach64 GUI engine that provided optimal 2D performance with either single-cycle EDO memory or high-speed SGRAM. The 3D Rage II chip was an enhanced, pin compatible version of the 3D Rage accelerator. The second-generation PCI-bus compatible chip boosted 2D performance by 20 percent and added support for MPEG-2 (DVD) playback. The chip also had driver support for Microsoft Direct3D and Reality Lab, QuickDraw 3D Rave, Criterion RenderWare, and Argonaut BRender. OpenGL drivers are available for the professional 3D and CAD community and Heidi drivers are available for AutoCAD users. Drivers are also provided in operating systems including Windows 95, Windows NT, the Mac OS, OS/2, and Linux. ATI also shipped a TV encoder companion chip for RAGE II, the ImpacTV chip. RAGE II was integrated into several Macintosh Computers, including the first revision of the Macintosh G3 (Beige), Power Mac 6500. In IBM-compatible PCs, several motherboards and video cards used the chipset as well including: the 3D Xpression+, the 3D Pro Turbo, and the original All-in-Wonder.
