Epson Progression Product Support Bulletin page 7

EPSON AMERICA, NC.
Product Support Bulletin
Epson Progression 4 - Questions and Answers
Subject:
Date: 06/04/93
Page(s): 1 of 7
Q1. What is the Epson Progression 4?
A.
The Epson Progression 4 is a small footprint, ISA compatible, desktop
computer that incorporates the CHIPS & Technologies 'Wingine Graphics"
acceleration architecture. This technology greatly enhances performance
in the Microsoft Windows graphical environment running Windows
applications. Additionally, this system uses a proprietary memory access
technology called VirtualCache, which allows the computer to use all of
the system memory like a cache buffer. This dramatically increases overall
system and video performance.
Q2.
What is Wingine, and how does it differ from other 'local bus" video
implementations already on the market?
A. Wingine is derived from the term "windows engine", and is a graphics
acceleration technology developed by CHIPS & Technologies specifically
to speed up graphics processing and improve video performance in the
Windows environment. Epson is the first company to use this new
technology which can improve performance up to 10 times over standard
VGA.
Traditional ISA systems require the CPU to access the VGA controller
over the ISA bus. Data is sent by the VGA controller to video memory,
back to the VGA controller, and then to the display. Because the ISA bus
has only a 16-bit wide data path and operates at 8MHz, the performance
is slow.
'Local bus" solutions eliminate the ISA bus bottleneck but retain other
bottlenecks. For example, data traveling from the CPU over an extension
to the system's local bus, the data moves at system speed to the VGA
controller. Data is then sent to the DRAM video memory and then back to
the VGA controller before moving to the display. The data moves much
faster than in the ISA bus architecture, but this method still results in
bottlenecks as data moves through the intervening components, such as
the VGA controller.
PSB No: S-0160
Originator: DS
EPSON