ATI Graphics Ultra
The Graphics Ultra was the first card from ATi to host their first 2D hardware accelerator chip - the Mach8. This was essentially a clone of the IBM 8514/A with a few notable extensions such as Crystal fonts.
Being one of the first graphics accelerator chips on the market, the Mach8 did not have an integrated VGA core, i.e. it was just an accelerator card. In order to use the first Mach8 coprocessor cards, a separate VGA card was required. A temporary solution was presented with the ATi Graphics Ultra and ATi Graphics Vantage cards, which combined an ATi 8514 Ultra and VGA Wonder+ into a single card (though using discrete ICs).
The Mach8 (ATI38800) was ATI's first true Graphics Accelerator, providing hardware assisted drawing capabilities for 2D primitives like lines, rectangles and polygons. It was register-compatible with the IBM 8514/A Display Adapter. Thus any applications or drivers that supported the 8514/A would run on a Mach8 without any modification. The Mach8 also extended on the 8514/A specification. It did not have any VGA compatibility so a separate VGA controller was required for standard text and VGA modes.
Some Mach8 boards, like the ATi Graphics Ultra and ATi Graphics Vantage included a VGA Wonder+ controller on the same board as the Mach8 to provide this VGA support. The VGA controller had its own memory, completely separate from the Mach8 accelerator's memory. Mach8-based boards were produced in both ISA and IBM Micro Channel versions.
Rough theoretical performance of this card is 10 MPixel/s pixel rate, and 0 MTexel/s texture rate. Memory performance is 40 MB/s. It blew away its competitors performance-wise upon its release in early 1992.
Board Revisions
Competition
In the Media
"At $899 for the 1-MB VRAM version, ATI's Graphics Ultra commands the highest price of the tested accelerators. Based on performance and bundled extras, the Ultra makes a strong case for justifying its price tag. For example, the Ultra leads the field in two of the three performance tests. It ran six times faster than the ProDesigner II in the NotePad and PageMaker comparisons, and it boosted Ami Pro screen scrolls two times faster than the baseline board.
The Ultra teams a proprietary Mach 8 coprocessor, an 8514/A clone, with an on-board VGA controller for compatibility across the range of low and high resolutions up to 1024 by 768 pixels by 256 colors noninterlaced at 72 Hz. A mouse port and Microsoft-compatible mouse come standard with the board.
Unique among the tested products are the scalable screen fonts that ATI bundles with the accelerator. Like Adobe Type Manager and similar products, these fonts, called Crystal Fonts, produce high-resolution letters to make proofing and reading of small text easier. Apparent resolution increases, thanks to the antialiasing algorithm that adds shades of gray to smooth jagged edges of letters. ATI plans to offer a package of 35 additional Crystal Fonts and support for TrueType and Bitstream and Adobe font converters.
As I've already mentioned, the Ultra placed at or near the top in each of the performance tests. In addition, selected menus and repositioned windows appeared instantaneously after my mouse clicks. Less impressive, however, was the screen display. The board provided noticeable improvement in display quality over the ProDesigner II, but compared to other contenders in this review, the Ultra's display was lacking. Icons in Ami Pro were recognizable, but the scissors and other toolbox items looked blurry. Also, the boldfaced main menu text looked muddy, while the Roman fonts identifying applications in the Windows Program Manager were fuzzy."
Byte, January 1992
Setting it Up
There is no hardware configuration required for the Graphics Ultra - just run the setup utility on the provided disk to use extended modes.
Downloads
Operation Manual Get in touch if you can provide this missing item! |
Original Utility Disk Get in touch if you can provide this missing item! |
VGA BIOS ROM Get in touch if you can provide this missing item! |
Mach 8 DOS Tools A cut-down version of the Ultra-8514 utility tools. Allows you to test the card, set the startup video mode, and change the video mode. |
Mach 8 Windows 3.1 Drivers Windows 3.1 drivers for Mach 8 cards. Use the LOADER utility to install. |
Mach 8 Windows 3.1 and 3.11 Drivers ATI mach8 revision 3.0 256 color ATI Desktop driver for Windows 3.1 and 3.11. Runs on Mach8 cards with 1MB of accelerator memory, is faster than previously released drivers with an emphasis on stability. This driver does not support 16 color (4bpp) mode. |
Mach 8 Windows 3.1 Drivers Windows 3.1 drivers for Mach 8 cards. Will work only if you have previously installed an ATI Windows 3.1 driver. If you have not done so, run the installation disk #1 that came with your video card and install the Windows 3.1 driver, before running this driver upgrade install program. |
Mach 8 / Mach 32 Windows 3.1 Drivers Windows 3.1 drivers for Mach 8 cards. Will work only if you have previously
installed an ATI Windows 3.1 driver. If you have not done so, run the
installation disk #1 that came with your video card and install the
Windows 3.1 driver, before running this driver upgrade install program. |
Mach 8 / Mach 32 Windows NT Beta Drivers For the MARCH 1993 Beta Release |
More Pictures
