Chapter 190 Voodoo vs. Quake!
Su Yuanshan and Li Mingliu changed into cleanroom suits and followed Chen Daohua into the dust-free production workshop.
Of course, regardless of how special their identities were, the production line wasn't going to sit idle waiting for them.
By the time they entered, the pre-cut PCBs were already on the SMT (Surface-Mount Technology) line.
Because these were just engineering sample cards—and because Xinghai had only sent a limited number of chips—this batch of graphics cards consisted of just twenty units, assuming a 100% yield rate.
Chen Daohua wasn't sure if Su Yuanshan and Li Mingliu had ever seen a production line before, so he explained carefully,
"After the PCBs are printed and drilled at the PCB factory, they're delivered here.
First, they're placed on the SMT workbench, where solder paste is applied, and then the surface-mounted components are placed automatically.
After that, the PCB is sent into the reflow oven to melt the solder paste."
"Our SMT line uses Sony's placement machines," Chen Daohua added when he noticed Su Yuanshan watching the machines intently.
"Very high yield rates."
Su Yuanshan nodded with a smile.
"Next comes visual inspection, right?"
"Yes," Chen Daohua confirmed.
"After SMT, each board undergoes manual visual inspection. If it passes, it moves to the next line—manual insertion.
There, workers install components that machines can't handle easily, like slots, ports, upright capacitors, and through-hole components."
He led them along the line.
"Once manual insertion is complete, the boards go through wave soldering. After soldering, we trim the pins, perform another visual inspection, and that's basically it.
Then it's functional testing, packaging, random sampling, and final shipping."
Li Mingliu glanced around and noticed that the first batch of PCBs had already emerged from the reflow oven.
He smiled,
"Looks like PCB printing is the slowest part of the process."
Chen Daohua nodded.
"Right. The more layers, the slower it is.
But with a standardized production flow, the speed is acceptable.
After all, we're printing large sheets and cutting them into smaller boards."
Su Yuanshan asked,
"In PCB production, is it similar to chip manufacturing?
The more units you can cut from a single sheet or wafer, the lower the per-unit cost?"
Chen Daohua laughed.
"In theory, yes—if cutting is easy.
But PCB board cost is actually a very small portion.
The real costs lie in the chips and high-spec components.
Smaller boards just mean higher shipment volumes."
They continued touring the workshop.
Su Yuanshan noticed that most of the workers were young.
At this time, electronics factory jobs were considered desirable—high wages, "high status"—and people scrambled to get in.
It wasn't like the later years when factories couldn't even recruit workers.
Before long, the first graphics cards came off the line and entered the testing phase.
"We don't have professional testing equipment yet," Chen Daohua said, chuckling.
"For now, we'll just use multimeters.
Luckily, these are engineering samples, and there aren't many."
He added,
"Once ready, we'll test them in real PCs using the demo games and test software that Xinghai sent over."
...
(No need for too much explanation—if you've worked in electronics, you probably know all this better than me. Corrections welcome if I got anything wrong.)
Without waiting for the full batch, Chen Daohua grabbed two cards and led the group to the tech testing room.
Inside, two brand-new PCs were already set up.
Su Yuanshan picked up a graphics card, seeing the OCSS and Sirius logos on the core.
A strange feeling rose in his heart.
The naming rights had been left to the graphics team, and after long discussions, they had ultimately chosen to walk the historical path once again.
Yes, just like the original 3DFX team—they still believed that 3D was a kind of faith.
And that faith should have a bit of wicked humor.
Thus, they named the core Sirius and the graphics card VOODOO—
the English word for the mysterious Voodoo religion.
The two PCs Chen had prepared were equipped with Pentium processors running at 66MHz,
with a whopping 64MB of RAM (two 32MB 72-pin SIMM modules).
(Note: SIMM stands for Single Inline Memory Module—a standard for memory integration.)
Of course, the motherboards were Meijie's own top-end models, fully supporting Pentium processors.
It wasn't an exaggeration to say:
Once you slotted in the VOODOO 3D accelerator, these would be the most luxurious PCs to date.
"Where's the camera?" Chen Daohua called out.
"On the way!" someone replied.
Chen nodded, powered off the PCs, and together with Su Yuanshan installed the VOODOO cards into the PCI slots, connecting them to the 2D graphics cards.
Why were they called "3D accelerator cards" instead of graphics cards?
Because at that time, the 3D cores, just like in the original timeline, were purely for 3D acceleration.
They couldn't render complete images independently—
they worked in conjunction with 2D cards.
The next generation of cores, already in development, would integrate 2D and 3D functionality into true GPUs.
Technically, Su Yuanshan had considered launching an integrated GPU immediately—
It wasn't hard.
But both he and the original 3DFX team had hesitated for the same reason:
There were dozens of 2D card manufacturers at the time.
Launching a GPU would mean declaring war on all of them.
And Su Yuanshan knew—
desperate people would do anything.
They would smear 3D technology, sabotage marketing, stir up trouble everywhere.
Better to ease in gently:
Launch 3D as an add-on, so that 2D manufacturers still had a place,
and users wouldn't feel their 2D cards had been "wasted."
Soon, the camera crew arrived.
Su Yuanshan and Chen Daohua booted up the machines.
First up was the test software—a hastily made app focused on polygon rendering, mainly checking card stability and basic performance.
No fancy benchmarks yet—this was early days.
After testing polygons, they launched the real treat:
A demo version of a game called Quake.
The familiar main menu appeared on screen.
Su Yuanshan smiled faintly and quickly entered the game.
The moment the 3D scene rendered—
someone behind him gasped aloud.
Even Li Mingliu, who had never cared much about games, stepped closer, watching as Su Yuanshan moved the character smoothly across the map, collecting weapons and engaging enemies.
Character models were detailed, explosions were convincing, and smoke effects were realistic.
As the demo progressed, voices of admiration filled the room.
Although the demo lasted only five minutes,
the entire experience was buttery smooth.
Su Yuanshan estimated the framerate:
Maybe around 30fps—
which was unbelievable for the time.
Putting down the mouse reluctantly, Su Yuanshan turned to face the camera with a smile.
"Scott, you did a great job.
John, you too.
I hope to see both of you at CES in two months."
Then he turned to the technicians.
"Now, let's try a more standard machine—test it with AMD and Cyrix CPUs, and reduce the RAM to mainstream levels."
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