Graphics chip and card maker ATI Technologies Inc. has announced that it’s now a permanent member of the OpenGL Architecture Review Board (ARB). The company joins 3Dlabs, Compaq, Evans & Sutherland, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Microsoft and SGI.
The OpenGL ARB develops standards related to the 3D graphics technology, and oversees the certification process used by hardware and software vendors who are developing OpenGL-compatible products. Apple supports OpenGL as its 3D API of choice.
Rick Bergman is ATI’s senior vice president of marketing and general manager, Desktop Group. Bergman said that ATI is excited to become a permanent member of the ARB, as it has been an auxiliary member since 1999.
“ATI has long been committed to the OpenGL API as it provides the interface that allows our users to benefit tremendously from their ATI graphics acceleration products,” said Bergman.
ATI has a vendor of graphics hardware for the Mac market for many years. At one time ATI’s products were found in all Macs. While rival Nvidia has worked itself into most of Apple’s pro desktop products and all of its consumer desktop products, ATI’s Radeon 7500 card can be found in Apple’s new entry-level Power Mac G4, and its chips are used in iBook and PowerBook G4 systems as well. ATI continues to support the Mac retail space with its Radeon Mac Edition and two new offerings announced at Macworld Expo San Francisco — the Radeon 7000 Mac Edition and the Radeon 8500 Mac Edition.
ATI noted that it’s working with other OpenGL industry leaders to “adopt a common interface for the programmable shading architectures of today and the future.”
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