Unified Drivers

Unified at last

A somewhat enigmatic name, Creative's Unified is "Glide translator," a software layer that literally translates GLIDE calls into their equivalent commands in Microsoft's Direct3D API. Jim from Creative was adamant the difference between a "translator" and a "wrapper," which may extensively rewrite parts of the renderer itself.

Unified is special in that it uses 100% public domain code and specifications from Glide, using nothing that can be considered proprietary by 3dfx or part of their "Intellectual Property" rights. Basically this means they're trying very hard to avoid any potential legal problems with Unified development.

More to the pie

In addition to pure translation, Unified also adds "extensions" that go beyond the original Glide spec, supporting features not implemented on 3dfx's cards. Currently, some extensions in the works are 24/32-bit final rendering, stencil buffering, 24/32-bit Z-buffer support, textures sizes beyond 256x256, and AGP texturing.

While it can be argued that the significance of Glide has been greatly diminished in the last year by the advances of OpenGL and Direct3D, it still has support in the development community, and some big-name titles such as Diablo II will feature exclusive Glide support. Those enthusiastic about playing with experimental technology can give Unified a try in beta form by downloading it from The Creative Zone.