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CREATIVE EXPANDS GAMING ARSENAL WITH NEW 3D BLASTER ANNIHILATOR 2

Industry-Leading Gigatexel Game Accelerator Features the New GeForce2 GTS from NVIDIA

MILPITAS, Calif. - April 26, 2000 - Creative Technology Ltd. (NASDAQ: CREAF), the leading provider of Personal Digital Entertainment (PDE) Internet Solutions, today announced its next-generation graphics accelerator, the 3D Blaster Annihilator 2, based on the NVIDIA GeForce2 GTS - the Gigatexel processing, real-time shading graphics processor unit (GPU).

The successor to the award-winning 3D Blaster Annihilator Pro, the Annihilator 2 introduces the NVIDIA Shading Rasterizer (NSR). This radical new technology delivers 2 textures per pixel, per-pixel shading and complex pixel operation in a single pass with 4 independent pixel pipelines (to simulate material properties and natural phenomena), thus processing eight texels per clock cycle. This new architecture delivers up to 1.6 Gigatexels per second of peak fill rate performance, a dramatic improvement in texture processing power over any previous consumer graphics processor. With second-generation hardware transform and lighting (T&L) engines, the Annihilator 2 can process more than 25 million triangles per second. The Annihilator 2 boasts 32 MB of double-data rate (DDR) memory, effectively operating at 333MHz to generate 5.3 GB/second of dedicated graphics memory bandwidth.

The Annihilator 2 enables PC users to experience accurate surface attributes and textures in real time, rendering cinematically rich detailed environments. These compelling visual elements are a function of shaders, or per-pixel shading. In this process, pixels are assigned different attributes, such as color, light, shadow, reflectivity, gloss and more to accurately replicate complex environments. Users will experience significant improvement over texture mapping techniques that characterized previous graphics accelerators.

"Creative is proud to follow the tremendous success of the 3D Blaster Annihilator Pro with a new graphics accelerator that offers gamers such significant enhancements. As games become more complex in their design, Creative delivers a compelling solution that will meet the future needs of gamers," noted Steve Mosher, vice president of graphics business for Creative.

"By utilizing the GeForce2 GTS in the Annihilator 2, Creative Technology allows us to capitalize on a mutual vision that multimedia is revolutionizing the way people interact with their PCs," stated Dan Vivoli, senior vice president of marketing at NVIDIA. "With its Annihilator 2, Creative has taken a radical step towards interactive, photo-realistic, real-time experiences."

Features and Benefits:

  • Powered by the industry-leading gigatexel processing, per pixel shading GPU - the NVIDIA GeForce2 GTS
  • Advanced 256-bit graphics architecture>
  • AGP 4X with Fast Writes Support
  • Hardware full-scene anti-aliasing (FSAA)
  • NVIDIA Shading Rasterizer (NSR) - multi-operation single pass rasterizer
  • 32MB of Double Data Rate (DDR) memory effectively operating at 333 MHz
  • 5.3 GB/second of dedicated graphics memory bandwidth
  • Four new pixel pipelines that render up to 8 texels per clock cycle to deliver up to 1.6 Gigatexels peak fill rate performance
  • 2nd-generation hardware transform and lighting (T&L) engines processes more 25 million triangles per second
  • Optimized Direct3D and OpenGL acceleration with comprehensive support
  • Advanced per-pixel, perspective-correct texturing including per-pixel shading and lighting, cube environment mapping, per-pixel bump mapping, light and reflection maps and texture compression (DXTC, S3TC)
  • High performance 2D, GUI and DirectDraw
  • Screen resolutions up to 2048 x 1536 optimized for 32, 16 and 8-bit per pixel color depths
  • Flicker free refresh rates up to 240Hz
  • Advanced digital video processing for DirectShow, MPEG1, MPEG2
  • Enhanced motion compensation for full screen, full motion video playback
  • Multi-tap bilinear video scaling and filtering
  • Multiple video windows with hardware color space conversion and filtering
  • DVD sub-picture alpha blended compositing

Bundled Software:

  • Enhanced BlasterControl 4.0
  • Creative LAVA! Player
  • MediaRing Talk
  • E-Color Colorific and 3Deep
  • GeForce2 GTS Demos

Pricing and Availability
The 3D Blaster Annihilator 2 will be available online and at retail outlets in May 2000 at an estimated street price of US$349.99. More information about the 3D Blaster Annihilator 2 will be posted to www.creative.com.

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This announcement relates to products launched in the United States of America. The product names, contents, prices and availability may differ elsewhere in the world according to local factors and requirements.

3D Blaster is a registered trademark of Creative Technology Ltd. in the U.S. and other countries.

All other products mentioned herein are trademarks of their respective owners and are hereby recognized as such.

Certain statements in this press release, including the statements relating to NVIDIA's performance expectations for NVIDIA's family of products and expectations of continued revenue growth, are forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause results to be materially different than expectations. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, manufacturing and other delays relating to new products, difficulties in the fabrication process and dependence of NVIDIA on third-party manufacturers, general industry trends including cyclical trends in the PC and semiconductor industries, the impact of competitive products and pricing alternatives, market acceptance of the Company's new products, and NVIDIA's dependence on third-party developers and publishers. Investors are advised to read the NVIDIA's Annual Report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, particularly those sections entitled "Factors Affecting Operating Results," for a fuller discussion of these and other risks and uncertainties.

Notes to Editors: GeForce and GeForce2 GTS should be written with an uppercase G and F, all other letters lowercase, and a space between GeForce and 256 as well as a space between GeForce2 and GTS. GTS is ALL CAPITALS. The recommended format for Vanta and Quadro is title case. The recommended format for NVIDIA, RIVA 128, RIVA 128ZX, RIVA TNT and RIVA TNT2 is ALL CAPITALS.

NVIDIA, the NVIDIA logo, RIVA TNT, RIVA TNT2, Vanta, Quadro, and GeForce 256 are trademarks of NVIDIA Corporation.

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