Imagine 128 Series 2

Launched in 1995, the Imagine 128 Series 2 was essentially two graphics cards in one. For 3D graphics it used the Imagine 128 II chip but for basic 2D graphics it came with a Cirrus Logic CL-GD5424 graphics processor on the rear of the card with 512 KB of onboard memory (the top-right memory chip).

	Released	1996
	Bus	PCI
	Chipset	Imagine128 Series II + Cirrus Logic CL-GD5424
	Standards	MDA, Hercules, CGA, EGA, VGA
	Memory	4 MB EDO DRAM (Series 2e), 4 or 8 MB EDO VRAM, or 8 MB H-VRAM (Series 2)
	Ports	9-pin DSUB (RGB analogue video out)
	Part #	PC00FPLO-2
	FCC ID	JF9-I2PC4MW
	RAMDAC	IBM 26H3662
	Price	At launch: $699 (S2 4 MB), $399 (S2e 4 MB), $699 (S2 8 MB) Nov 1996: $499 (S2 4 MB), $349 (S2e 4 MB)
	See Also	Number Nine Imagine 128

There is also an SOJ socket in the lower-right to expand this 2D video portion of the card to 1 MB. For fast Windows GUI acceleration and 3D graphics, the card had the Imagine128 II processor chip. This chip doesn't get used at all until the Windows driver loads, so all of the DOS-based display is handled by the CL chip.

The primary upgrade over the earlier Imagine 128 from the year before was the introduction of an Intelligent Command Processor that was a VLIW processor which enabled the CPU to send multiple drawing commands directly into the graphics memory in a FIFO (First In, First Out) execution manner. The CPU was offloaded by a hardware DIB conversion (Microsoft Windows Device Independent Bitmap). The graphics accelerators chip’s 100 MHz memory controller could handle 800 megabytes per second single ported performance with EDO-DRAM, and with VRAM even more. It came with a Direct3D driver and the company claimed it could do 610,000 Gouraud-shaded 50-pixel triangles per second in 16-bit color.

The address the limitations of the Imagine 128, Number Nine added Gouraud shading, along with 16-bit and 32-bit Z-buffering, volume clipping, spatial blending, double display buffering, and a 256-bit video rendering engine.

There were four distinct versions of the Imagine 128 Series 2 which determined the type and size of installed memory:

• Imagine 128 Series 2 (4 MB VRAM)
• Imagine 128 Series 2 (8 MB VRAM) - announced Nov 1996, available early Q1 1997
• Imagine 128 Series 2 (8 MB H-VRAM)
• Imagine 128 Series 2e (4 MB DRAM)

"While other manufacturers claimed to have 128-bit graphics, Number Nine believes that the Imagine 128, Imagine 128 Series 2 and Series 2e are the only true 128-bit graphics cards in the world, utilizing 128-bit technology in all
three major subsystems -- the graphics processor, the internal processor bus and data path to graphics memory. The 128-bit data path enables the graphics system to draw either sixteen (16) 8-bit pixels, eight (8) 16-bit pixels, or four (4) 32-bit true-color pixels per clock cycle -- twice that of any other graphics accelerator on the market today. A number of industry-leading technological innovations puts the Imagine 128 Series 2 in a class of its own:"

• 256-bit Video Engine -- using a fast Pentium and a standard 4X CD-ROM drive, users will be amazed at the "movie-quality" full-motion, full- screen video display. The Imagine 128 Series 2 supports software-based MPEG decoding, which means no additional hardware is required to view popular MPEG titles.
• Workstation-Class 3D Functionality -- the Imagine 128 Series 2 brings true workstation-class 3D rendering capabilities to the PC platform, enabling users to run OpenGL applications under Windows NT 3.51 (via the 3D-DDI interface), and under Windows NT 4.0 (using Microsoft's Mini-Client Driver).
• Zero Wait-State PCI Local Bus Interface -- designed to keep pace with future system performance improvements, a zero wait-state PCI bus (Rev. 2.1 compliant) interface enables maximum bursts of data coming across the PCI bus.
• Intelligent Command Processor -- this on-board engine effectively enables parallel processing by autonomously calculating a long series of graphics instructions while freeing up the CPU to execute further application level instructions.

The Imagine 128 Series 2 was architected from the ground up to perform best under 32-bit, multi-tasking operating systems, such as Windows 95, Windows NT, OS/2 and Unix.

 

Board Revisions

Just one board revision is known: A01. The only BIOS version known is 3.01.03.

 

Competition

 

In the Media

 

Setting it Up

Downloads

Operation Manual (missing) Get in touch if you can provide this missing item!

Original Utility Disk (missing) Get in touch if you can provide this missing item!

 

More Pictures

Unknown source


Images of this card are courtesy of Vogons member Artex