Argonaut Software Ltd is not a widely known name in the computer industry, yet it is quietly working away in its homely offices in Colindale, North London with the likes of Fujitsu Ltd, Cirrus Logic Inc and Microsoft Corp. Argonaut is working on developing a new 32-bit RISC chip called the ARC or Argonaut RISC Core that it says runs at 40 to 50 million instructions per second. However, it is not planning to sell the chip on the open market, even though managing director Jez San says it has a slight edge on the 32-bit chip from Advanced RISC Machines Ltd in terms of price and performance. Instead it will use it for in-house development. Argonaut is currently using the chip in the latest version of its three-dimensional rendering software, BRender, which it has decided it should no longer keep to itself and is making it openly available. The RISC chip is a general purpose chip, but has specially developed three dimensional graphics. The rendering engine is 64-bit and the bus is 32-bit wide. It will not be made by any particular manufacturer. Another project the firm is working on is with Cirrus Logic Inc of Fremont, California to develop a VGA chip that contains on-board three-dimensional rendering as standard. It expects to have the chip out in the first quarter of next year, priced slightly higher than a conventional chip, but with the advantage that it can do better special effects because it requires less memory. The BRender rendering software that is already available calculates the three-dimensional graphics and generates animations in real time, which cuts the memory required for the average computer game from around 4Mb to something in the region of 512Kb. When applied to games development, BRender enables more advanced game effects to be developed, such as changing the angle from which the player sees the game while he is playing by rotating the apparent camera angle. It can also carry out Gouraud smooth shading and texture mapping. The firm is working with another company to find a way to provide the rendering software and the new graphics chip as navigation software for the television set-top box market, so as to make the selection of programming a more interactive and therefore interesting pastime, rather than making dull menu selections from lists, which is also harder for the user to understand. Argonaut’s third area of technology development is an in-house low cost MPEG-2 compression technology. Argonaut is using the ARC chip in its MPEG work as well as in its three-dimensional rendering software. It is looking for customers at the moment, although says this technology is further away than its other developments. As well as developing technology, Argonaut is also in the business of developing home entertainment computer games. It is currently working on 10 games, including one called Creature Shock which its says offers more realistic graphics quality and motion. It will come as a conventional two CD format for CD-ROM costing around UKP30 to UKP40. It is being published by Virgin Games Ltd and will come out this Christmas. Privately-held Argonaut was set up in 1982 by Jez San. The company is now looking to move to new offices in the Colindale area as it has outgrown its present location. It currently has a staff of around 70 people. – Abigail Waraker
