Ultra Assault : Help and support.

support
technical
system
directx
3d accelerator
license

### What is a 3D accelerator?

In a nut shell a 3D accelerator is a piece of hardware which speeds up the rendering of 3D images. Since most modern games are very 3D intensive many need a 3D accelerator in order to give you the quality and speed of graphics required to be playable.

The actual form a 3D accelerator comes in varies. The three typical ones are

- Single 3D/2D add-in board
- An extra board specifically for 3D
- Single 3D/2D chip on the motherboard

Note that the performance of 3D accelerators has increased tremendously over the past few years. Old 3D accelerators may in fact be so slow and have too little memory to be of any use. If this is the case you may need to buy a new 3D accelerator.

### How do I know if I have one?

Well this is more tricky to determine than it might first seem. If you have bought a new multimedia PC in the last 12 months, then it will almost certainly have some sort of 3D accelerator.

If you have bought a 3D add-in card like a 'GeForce' card - then this is a 3D accelerator and the game will work fine with this.

Failing all else you can always just try and run the demo of the product you are interested in! There's certainly nothing to lose this way.

### Where do I get a 3D accelerator from?

There are a variety of companies producing such cards, you may want to check out the companies and products below...

Company | Products | Website
3Dfx | Voodoo 2, 3, 4, 5, Voodoo Banshee, Velocity | www.3Dfx.com
S3 | Savage 3D, Savage S4, Savage 2000 | www.s3.com
ATI | Rage 128, Rage 128 Pro, Rage Fury MAXX, Radeon | www.atitech.com
Matrox | G200,G400 | www.matrox.com
nVidia | Riva TNT, Riva Vanta, Riva TNT 2, GeForce, GeForce2 | www.nvidia.com

The above list is for informational purposes only and is by no means exhaustive.

### What are DirectX and Direct3D?

DirectX is a series of software technologies developed by Microsoft. Their purpose was to enable compelling games experiences on the PC. The actual range of technologies is far reaching but the core ones are

- Direct3D - Allows fast access to 3D accelerators
- DirectSound - Allows playing and mixing of sounds
- DirectPlay - Allows fast networking
- DirectInput - Allows connection and use of a wide variety of devices (like steering wheels, force feedback joysticks)

Without this technology the games cannot access the facilities which may well mean that they are unable to run.

For more information about DirectX and Direct3D please go to the DirectX information pages.