ATI & Massive Render ‘The Lord of the Rings’ in Real Time in Linux

SAN ANTONIO, TX -- ATI Technologies Inc. (Nasdaq:ATYT)(TSX:ATY) and Massive today announced that they will be rendering Academy Award(R) winner, "The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Rings," in real time at SIGGRAPH. This demonstration will be taking place in the ATI booth and Massive booth using ATI's FIRE GL(TM) workstation graphics technology. To produce accurate modeling of light and materials, and conquer complex technical challenges, Massive's team used TRUFORM(TM) and SMARTSHADER(TM) rendering and shading technology features to create real-time cinematic lighting effects that could only be accomplished in software, until now. "Implementing cinematic lighting effects in elaborate film sequences, such as those seen in this demonstration, showcases the power of ATI's FIRE GL(TM) workstation graphics technology," said Rick Bergman, senior vice president of marketing & general manager, desktop marketing, ATI Technologies Inc. "We've taken a great leap forward to address the needs of digital content creators. With the strength of Massive software and the power of ATI's engine, visual computing enters a new era of functionality and control." "Seeing a computer generated film sequence rendered in real time is a huge benefit for artists," stated Stephen Regelous, Massive's chief technology officer and president. "Our technology demonstration showcases the huge leap forward taken by the digital content creation community to address the implementation of technically complex data of thousands of realistic digital characters interacting with each other and their environment in a completely procedural simulation." ATI's groundbreaking FIRE GL workstation graphics technology is the first in the world to deliver a fully programmable floating point architecture in both OpenGL(R) 2.0 and Microsoft(R) DirectX(R) 9. The FIRE GL features eight parallel rendering pipelines, the industry's first, providing twice the rendering power of any competing product, giving digital content creators the ability to preview finished scenes in real-time, saving days of production time.