We continue the tradition of looking inside the *.inf file of the newest driver to catch up something interesting about the upcoming products. Today we want to share some of our thoughts regarding the "insides" of the latest Win9x drivers for ATI RADEON - 4.13.7099. Besides the ordinary RADEON based products in the initialization strings we have noticed several code names of upcoming products. Keep in mind, there is no official information about the products mentioned below.
"Radeon Workstation AGP"=R6WS_ENU, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV;_5144&SUBSYS;_801A1002
Radeon Workstation AGP - Radeon for workstations, according to the name. As you can see, the identificational code of the chip is different from RADEON (R6) - R6WS. Of course, we do not have any specs of the product.
However, we continue to investigate the drivers.
As it appears, version 4.13.7099 contains functions that allow you to rotate the display. The same feature is used in professional accelerators from Appian. It is only availbale for Radeon Mobility right now, but it can also be turned on for the upcoming Radeon Workstation. In my own opinion, we should expect better OpenGL drivers for RADEON, because professional 3D graphics software use only this API. I have to remind you that those are only my personal intentions, which can be wrong.
U1, A3:
"U1" =U1_ENU, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV;_4336&SUBSYS;_43361002, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV;_4336
"U1" =U1_ENU, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV;_4336
"A3" =A3_ENU, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV;_4136&SUBSYS;_41361002, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV;_4136
"A3" =A3_ENU, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV;_4136
What are A3 and U1? Well, according to this post, they are integrated solutions for AMD K7 processors with RADEON graphics core. The unofficial sources claim them to be launched in May/June 2001.