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Everything You Need to Know about Nvidia’s 3D Goggle Gamble

Norman Chan — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 15:54:37 -0500

Take note, Rainier Wolfcastle, because these goggles may actually do something. Nvidia’s latest visual computing venture is a serious foray into stereoscopic 3D, a technology that has not found success among mainstream consumers (or even enthusiasts) in recent history. 3D movies and gaming at home have always been seen as gimmicky, a perception that can largely be attributed to the fact that you have to wear some pretty goofy glasses to experience the effect. In fact, past iterations of 3D stereographic technology (including efforts by the now-defunct company ELSA) have been especially troublesome because they required bulky headgear (that had to be tethered to your PC) that had a tendency to give gamers headaches after just a few minutes of use. Nvidia wants to reinvigorate the 3D stereoscopic market by developing its own glasses hardware and driver software, which they hope will avoid the pitfalls of previous efforts.

Do we have the technology to make stereoscopic 3D tech practical? And more importantly, is this something that, as a gamer, you’d be open to embrace?

You’re not going to be convinced unless you try these in person, which we did at last month’s NVISION festival. Nvidia gave us several opportunities to try out the tech, once during their CEO’s keynote address (on a cinema-size screen), on a 73” Mitsubishi DLP television, and also on a new 120Hz Viewsonic LCD display. The three-dimensional effect is definitely incredible, especially with the larger displays. We saw Call of Duty 4, Age of Empires III, and the racing game GRID demoed on these units, and each game was significantly enhanced with the use of 3D.

The illusion was most convincing in Call of Duty 4, which uses depth-of-field blurring for objects in the distance (especially when we aimed down the ironsights of a rifle). In the real-time strategy game, the HUD controls popped out of the screen, making us feel like we were looking through a window onto the battlefield. And in GRID, when cars spun out of control, they weren’t tossed off-screen, but at us. The point is, if a game is rendered with 3D graphics, it can take probably advantage of 3D stereoscopic technology. And with Nvidia’s new hardware solution, 350 new and existing games will work out of the box, with no game-specific drivers required.

We talked to Andrew Fear, the product manager of GeForce Stereoscopic 3D, to get the full scoop on why this isn’t going to be just another fad.

Q: How would you summarize 3D stereoscopic technology for someone who's never used it?

Andrew Fear: NVIDIA GeForce 3D stereoscopic 3D technology is an NVIDIA software and hardware solution which takes standard Microsoft DirectX games and converts them to stereoscopic 3D for an incredibly immersive gaming experience. Now all of your games are have depth information that goes into and comes out of your monitor. One of the best things about this from a gamer’s standpoint is that we are using the standard 3D games they are playing -- we are not requiring special versions of games to get this experience.

Q: How does it work?

AF: The NVIDIA GeForce Stereoscopic 3D driver works at the lowest level by taking 3D game data and rendering each scene twice – once for the left eye and once for the right eye. Each eye image is offset from each other for the correct viewing. The GPU then sends this data to a 3D Ready display. These displays show the left eye view for even frames (0, 2, 4, etc) and the right eye view for odd frames (1, 3, 5, etc). NVIDIA 3D glasses then synchronize back to the 3D Ready display and present slightly different images to each eye resulting in the illusion of depth and an incredibly immersive experience for games.

Q: What software and hardware is needed?

AF: You’ll need a PC with the following:

An NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT GPU or better
Windows Vista 32-bit (64-bit support coming soon)
Standard Microsoft DirectX game that NVIDIA has preconfigured in our driver (to date NVIDIA has preconfigured over 350+ games).
A supported 3D Ready display. To date we have announced support for ViewSonic® pure 120 Hz LCDs and Mitsubishi DLP® HDTVs.
NVIDIA stereoscopic 3D active shutter glasses (coming soon)

Q: How does the current generation of stereoscopic 3D tech differ from what gamers saw 5 years ago?

AF: You no longer have to crank that little handle on the glasses. Just kidding. The new software technology we are working on has come a long way. Today our driver supports NVIDIA SLI, GeForce 8 series, Windows Vista, and DirectX 10. So it’s a cutting edge, terrific gaming platform to start with.

Our driver now supports the latest Zalman Trimon 3D Ready displays and will add support for new 3D Ready displays (ViewSonic and Mitsubishi) working with our new 3D glasses laster this year. The underlying technology works the same, but the experience has improved with support for more games, more graphics cards, and new hardware.

Q: How does game integration work? Will patches or special game profiles be required? Is it compatible with both Direct3D and OpenGL?

AF: NVIDIA GeForce stereoscopic 3D technology was designed to work with virtually all DirectX 7, 8, 9, and 10 games. The driver automatically converts standard 3D games to work with 3D Ready displays. There is no need for patches. In fact, more than 350 games work well with our technology out of the box. NVIDIA is also working with game developers to ensure that new titles work properly with our stereoscopic 3D technology out of the box. Right now, we do not have OpenGL support but will be working to release it soon.

Q: We saw demos of the technology running in a real-time strategy, shooter, and racing game. How does the technology know how to differentiate between game genres to ensure that 3D looks right?

AF: NVIDIA’s software team analyzes games and correctly configures the settings based upon the type of game you are using. So the great thing for consumers is that we’ve done all the work for you, so you can get gaming in minutes.

Q: How will users be able to calibrate 3D?

AF: One of the biggest limiting factors in previous solutions for gamers was that they required meticulous calibrating when setting up your display and glasses. With many advances in technology, a lot of that setup can be done automatically now since we can detect the displays, glasses, and games. That being said, end users still have full control over the amount of 3D depth (sometimes called eye separation) for all of their games. So end users can configure these settings directly in a software control panel. In our new solution launching later this year, we will also provide a scroll wheel on the back of the wireless emitter that lets you quickly “dial in” the level of 3D depth to your taste.

Q: Will this work with someone who wears glasses or contact lenses?

Users who wear glasses and contact lens should have no problems with our 3D glasses. In fact, our glasses were designed from day one to be easily worn over most types of glasses frames, so you can comfortably wear both. In addition, we will provide different nose piece attachments when the glasses ship so you can select the nose piece that’s most comfortable for you. We tested our design among scores of eyeglass users leading up to and including NVISION, and every glasses wearer had no trouble wearing our 3D glasses over their prescription ones. Contact lens users won’t be affected and can wear our 3D glasses with no problems.

Q: Is the effect nauseating after prolonged usage?

AF: Only if you’re looking at a nauseating image :). The experience of playing a game in 3D can be so convincing that those new to it may feel slightly disoriented at first. This varies considerably, because everyone is different. Some people get car sickness and others don’t. It’s the same thing with 3D – some people can feel disoriented while others aren’t affected. Typically most people have a negative experience with stereoscopic 3D gaming for two reasons: low refresh and too much 3D depth.

Our new 3D glasses solve the problem of low refresh rate because they are designed to work with LCDs and DLP HDTVs which operate at a higher refresh rate. Most gamers are extremely comfortable at these settings.

Too much 3D depth can also cause eyestrain since your brain needs time to adjust to dimensionalized data on your monitor. If you think about it, all of your life your brain has been trained that it only has to focus at the depth of your monitor, even when you are playing 3D games. However in the real-world, your brain in trained to change its focus on objects at different depths all of the time and you do not experience any problems.

So if you think about it, we are just retraining your brain to now be able to focus on your monitor knowing that objects go into and come out of the screen. To help ease this transition for users, our software always starts off with a lower depth amount. We tested this level with end users and found it was a good value for people experiencing stereoscopic 3D for the first time. We also found that most people’s eyes adjust fairly quickly after about fifteen minutes and generally want to turn up the 3D depth after that.

We’ve done extensive testing with our new glasses and 3D Ready displays, and we’ve found that experienced users can easily play a game for 4 hours or more without feeling eyestrain or disorientation.

Q: What are the technological limitations of stereoscopic tech? Will more than one person be able to see the game in 3D at once?

AF: Absolutely, that’s one of the things that’s so cool about it. If you’ve gone to a 3D movie recently, you’ve seen how the audience reacts when characters and objects appear to jump out of the screen. You can also enjoy the same sense of amazement playing games with your friends or family. It definitely makes games more interesting to watch. At NVISION, we demonstrated stereoscopic 3D gaming on Mitsubishi DLP HDTVs and we had more than eight people using our 3D glasses at once, all watching the same game. Our 3D glasses use a wirelress IR receive to synchronize back to the monitor and PC, so the amount of users that can game at once is literally how many people can you fit in your living room!

Q: What kind of GPU processing power is required to render stereoscopic images? How are framerates affected?

AF: We recommend a GeForce 8800 GT-level GPU or faster for a good stereoscopic 3D experience because our 3D technology must calculate two versions of each frame to render it correctly. For this reason, there will be some performance impact running in a game in stereoscopic 3D mode. With a suitable GPU, the gameplay experience is still fast and immersive.

Q: Can you talk about the shutter glasses hardware that NVIDIA is working on and planning to bring to market? Release date and price range?

AF: These glasses are a new design from NVIDIA: they operate wirelessly to an IR transmitter that connects to the back of your PC via USB. They have a rechargeable battery that lasts about 40 hours on a single charge, and they turn off after 10 minutes of non-use to save battery charge. A small indicator light will blink red when the battery needs to be recharged. Simply connect it to the (included) USB cable to recharge.

We expect to release the glasses in a package with the emitter by the end of this year. The retail price hasn’t been set yet.

Q: Is NVIDIA working with any publishers or developers to promote 3D stereoscopic technology?

AF: Absolutely. We have shown the glasses to the majority of PC game publishers and developers. They love the effect, and they like the fact that they don’t need to do anything special to support it. Most developers just say “When can I get one?” That being said, game developers can always work with us to ensure that game is optimized out of the box and delivers an even more immersive experience.

Q: Is this a technology that’s being targeted for the living room or more for desktop gaming?

AF: That’s a good question. From our standpoint, we’ll feel we succeeded if users can have a great 3D experience at their PC or in the living room. It probably depends on the room and the monitor, because we’ve noticed that people like to be fairly close to the ViewSonic 22-inch desktop LCD, and they like to be about 8 feet away from the Mitsubishi 73-inch Diamond Vision DLP.

Q: What are some other applications of 3D stereoscopic tech outside of games?

AF: Simulations are an obvious area of great potential. At NVISION an engineer told us how he developed astronaut training simulations for NASA which cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and produced a similar effect. Good stereoscopic 3D technology can be used for training pilots, doctors, technicians, and soldiers.

One of the other areas we are looking at for consumers is that wide array of 3D applications are out, such as Google Earth, Piclens, and Microsoft Photosynth. All of these applications utilize the processing power of a GPU to render their effects in 3D. Since our GPU can access that data, we can create a stereoscopic view of it and completely immerse you in it.

Home movies are also moving towards 3D. Consumers are eager to enjoy high-fidelity, immersive experiences in their home after experiencing it in the theater. If they can have immersive experiences at an affordable price, you’ll see nothing but smiles under those 3D glasses. 3D movies for the home is not quite ready yet, but we are working with the industry to help enable a new standard for the home.

We also chatted with Duane Brozek of Viewsonic to get a panel-maker’s perspective of 3D Stereoscopic tech.

Q: What technologies do display panels need to have for 3D to be supported?

Duane Brozek: There are currently several types of 3D technologies available in the market. The two most common types being Stereoscopic with active shutter glasses, and Autostereoscopic type without glasses. The Autostereoscopic technologies include Barrier Type, Directional BLU, and Lenticular type LCD panels.

ViewSonic feels that clearly the best available solution in terms of performance, manufacturing complexity, and cost is the Stereoscopic technology which we recently announced in conjunction with NVIDIA. In terms of panel design, the only requirements are the ability to run in native mode with 120 Hz data content input, and the ability to support a fast gray-to-gray response time in less than 1/120 of a frame (this equates to a gray-to-gray response time below 8ms).

While Autostereoscopic technologies are improving, they are panel structure dependent and have a high cost of manufacturing and software development. Additionally, they can demonstrate a number of limitations in terms of performance criteria such as brightness, resolution, and viewing position. We don’t believe that a good quality stereoscopic technology without glasses is cost effective either now or in the foreseeable future.

Q: Are there additional benefits to 120 Hz LCD panels?

DB: There are three additional benefits of 120 Hz LCD technology for consumers:
- enables full resolution stereoscopic viewing with active shutter glasses technology.
- enables a wider viewing angle than current autostereoscopic solutions with active shutter glasses.
- 120 Hz LCDs are also terrific for gamers when not playing stereoscopic 3D games, because the higher refresh rate means you can display more frames per second running on NVIDIA GeForce GPUs.

Q: How much more expensive will 3D-supported panels cost over regular displays?

DB: Depending on the type of 3D implementation chosen, the additional cost on the monitor side could range anywhere from $100 to well over a thousand dollars. ViewSonic is targeting to launch our first “pure” 120Hz / 3D desktop product at an end user price range reflecting a premium at the lower end of that scale. For the performance improvement we will deliver, we believe that gamers, graphics professionals and enthusiasts will be excited to put one on their desktop. The Controller and Glasses will be sold separately.

Q: What kind of market penetration and adoption rate do you expect for 3D-capable panels in the next couple years? What will be the biggest determining factor for consumers to get on board with this tech?

DB: We believe that 3D-capable LCD monitors will certainly be one of the fastest growing segments over the next several years. We are essentially starting from a base of zero though, and do not expect to see market share greater than 5 percent within the period. However, the products that we introduce now will be laying the groundwork for the next generation of 3D displays, and providing a framework for the continued development of new 3D content. These new “pure 120Hz” monitors not only provide a crisp, blur-free 2D experience for a myriad of consumer and business applications, but also a truly immersive gaming experience that we believe will revolutionize the desktop and generate considerable demand and sales.

No BS Podcast #78 The Amazing Flying Cat Edition

The Maximum PC Staff — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 22:15:49 -0500

The podcast gang was in awe of the amazing winged cat! After the sense of wonder and amazement passed, we talked of Nvision, the amazing demoscene stuff that came out at Nvision this week, Video Games Live, and manage not to answer a single tech question in our Q&A bit. Also, Dave interviews Tricia Helfer and Nuclearbastard. And we talk about the freaky cat with wings some more.

Do you have a tech question? A comment? A tale of technological triumph? Just need to get something off your chest? A secret to share? Email us at maximumpcpodcast@gmail.com or call our 24-hour No BS Podcast hotline at 877.404.1337 x1337--operators are standing by.

Subscribe: http://feeds.feedburner.com/maximumpc/1337

Sitting With Six: Maximum PC's One-on-One with Battlestar Galactica's Tricia Helfer

David Murphy — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 12:50:00 -0500

Anyone can talk about "visual computing," the big catchphrase of this year's Nvision conference. But few walk the walk as well as Battlestar Galactica's Tricia Helfer. She took part in Monday's keynote address alongside Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang, sharing how virtualization and computer effects have expanded her acting boundaries and methodology.

But there's always more to Six than what you see at face value. So Maximum PC sat down with Tricia to grill her (as nicely as one chats with someone who gave Starbuck the business) about the kind of technology that really makes her tick, and how she's managed her spaceborne success-turned-geek icon. Even after all that, she still wouldn't drop us any details on the Battlestar series finale--our favorite Cylon truly has a heart of steel.

So, Tricia, what are you doing at Nvision?

What am I doing? I think I’m giving perspective to the audience of what it’s like working with some of the technology that they’re developing. A lot of the people out there are developing it, but they don’t necessarily know what it’s like to work on the other side of it and the difficulties, the pros and the cons, that kind of thing. Maybe it’ll help them in the long run. Maybe it’ll help them develop a little bit—"well maybe we should try this! Maybe we should try that!"

What are your expectations for Nvision? Do you think of this as your typical geeky convention?

No, this is completely different. Conventions, science fiction conventions, are more just—for me, they’re more laid-back. You’re talking basically about Battlestar Galactica and answering questions about the plot lines, and the story lines, and everything like this. Being here at Nvision is a complete honor, because I’m coming on after Jeff Han. As I was discovering yesterday, what he’s doing is unbelievable. And to be on stage with [Nvidia CEO] Jen-Hsun Huang—it’s an amazing group of people to be on stage with. So it’s an honor. I’m a complete tech idiot, so it’s very interesting for me to kind of hear what’s going on out there and be a part of it.

Since you’ve admitted to being a technophobe, what’s your guilty geeky pleasure?

(laughs) I, honestly, am probably one of the worst people… I have four iPods, because NBC keeps giving them for Christmas gifts and stuff. I still don’t even know how to, like… I never take them anywhere because they’re not full of anything. And my friend keeps sending me downloaded music and I don’t know how to actually get it from the e-mail onto my computer or onto my iPod. I can’t sync my Blackberry to my Mac. If something goes wrong, I literally yell at my husband to fix it for me, I call a computer tech, or I call my sister who manages my Web site.

One of these days, I’m hoping all these people out there make it easy enough for computer idiots like me that can just plug it in and everything works!

How have you managed the transition between people who see you as Tricia the actress versus Tricia the Cylon?

I started acting a year before I got Battlestar, so Battlestar is definitely one of the things that I’m known for in the acting world the most. But I think now it’s a little bit different because in the very beginning I found it was very funny because people, when they met me, if they were fans of Battlestar, they were very intimidated by me.

Number Six, she’s a very strong character—physically, and emotionally, and mentally and everything—and I would find people scared to come up to talk to me at the first couple of conventions that I did. After awhile, the fans—after you’ve met at a few conventions and they realize you not actually the baby-killing whatever—sometimes it’s hard to differentiate between the actor and what they see on screen. So it just takes a couple of conventions and word starts to get out that she’s actually a nice person and so forth. And now, at conventions, people are a lot more open to talking to me and getting a picture with me and all that kind of thing.

Does the science fiction convention tour ever get overwhelming?

I try and go for the happy medium. I like to do a few because I do like to get out there and meet the fans, show them the respect—these conventions, they come to see people. Not just the actors, but also all the illustrators, everybody involved in the sci-fi world. But I don’t do it for a moneymaking thing. I don’t want to do as many as I can. I also want to work toward other jobs, and I also don’t want to get known just too much in the sci-fi world. Now with Battlestar ending, my next couple of jobs are outside of the sci-fi realm because Battlestar has been known for such amazing writing. For me to step back into sci-fi, which I will, I want it to be of a quality—the same type of a quality. And so I’ve turned down a lot of roles that are in the sci-fi genre that I just don’t feel match up.

It’s also, I don’t want to get known just in one genre because then I think it’s limiting for your career longevity in the long run.

But you have dabbled in the geekier roles—the Command and Conquer game…

Well, you know, a lot of the other things that I’ve done too. In hiatius, I did an independent movie with Leelee Sobieski called Walk All Over Me that had nothing to do with the Sci-Fi genre…

Canada’s Next Top Model?

Canada’s Next Top Model, I hosted and produced. I just did one year, I didn’t want to do more. That was taking me back too much into the modeling realm. I was fighting to get out of being a model-turned-actress and fighting to be taken seriously. And I was just starting to be taken seriously as an actor and then it was like—bang!—it went right back there. The show’s great, and they do really well, but it just wasn’t for me.

Instead I did the film Walk All Over Me, and that went to the Toronto Film Festival, The Weinstein Company bought it. It’s out in the states right now on DVD. And because of that, one of the casting directors from Fox Networks saw me at the Toronto Film Festival in that film and she liked me, and they put me under a holding deal, and now I’m doing a pilot for them—a show for them.

It’s just—you have to choose your priorities. It’s a business. You have to mold your career to where you want to go.

On the next page: saying goodbye to Battlestar Galactica

Now that you’ve finished filming the fourth and last Battlestar season, what’s been the hardest thing to say goodbye to?

I’d say from a personal level, the hardest thing to say bye to is just the people that you’ve gotten to know. We had a really wonderful, and I think fairly rare experience in TV shows of having a crew and a cast that just so enjoyed working together—got a real family environment and everything. So to say bye to these people that you’ve spent four seasons but five years filming with is hard.

And also, the writing I think was so cutting-edge and just so good that you start reading some other scripts and you’re like (groans) Lord. Granted, I’m lucky to be filming two other shows that have really good writing, so I’ve gotten lucky in that respect, but just, generally, it’s the people I’m going to miss. But we’re doing a little surprise. We’re doing a little movie.

Bringing the franchise forward even more?

It’s kind of a one-off to finish up a few—I can’t give details about it obviously—but we’re about to start shooting that.

Is it tough to break away from such an iconic role in Battlestar? No matter what, don’t you think you’ll always be seen as, “oh, that’s actress that played Six?”

I think there are two things that are on my side with that. One is that the show’s been critically acclaimed, so other people in the business—other producers, directors, writers, and so forth—a lot of them are fans of the show for the integrity of the show. So you get a lot more weight. They give you a lot more credit for maybe having more acting chops than actors in science fiction generally get.

Secondly too, because most of my characters—it’s different with the fourth season because I have a character or two that looks like me with this hair—but the iconic Six has a blond wig, so I don’t look anything like her in my own life and when I go in to audition for other roles and that sort of thing.

It gives a good separation. And you’re playing a character, so it makes you much more of a character actor in that realm. Six was a character. I was being a character. And then when they meet me, they’re like, “oh, okay, you can look like other things.”

If you could have played a different character or style on Battlestar, who would you want to be?

That’s the thing. I would have wanted to have been somebody like a Starbuck, a fighter character. I’m a tomboy at heart. I know I don’t look like it, but I grew up on a farm. I grew up driving tractors and all that kind of thing. I drive a sports car, I drive motorbikes. I’m a tomboy.

The grass is always greener—all the girls in the flight suits were always saying, “I want to wear some of Tricia’s pretty dresses!” and I’m like, “I want to try her flight suit and drive a Viper, so shut up!” And we’d always bicker back and forth.

In the finale, I actually do get to shoot guns. I was very happy because after the first season, with the stunt fight with Starbuck and one of the Sixes, they realized that I’m good at stunts. And so they’d periodically put stunts in. I love stunts. I so badly want to do an action—you know, run around with, even though I’m not a big gun advocate, I’d love to do a movie where I run around with guns.

Since you mentioned it, who’s your favorite person to punch on Battlestar?

(laughs) Katee Sackhoff and I had a really good time with our stunt fight that we did. That was probably my favorite just because it was so elaborate. We had to train for it for a month beforehand and it took us a day and a half to film just because it was such a long fight. But I didn’t actually connect with her. Luckily, I’ve gotten pretty good with it. I’ve never actually hurt anyone. But I think punching Michael Hogan was pretty fun. It’s already aired, so I can say—punching him, and of course it turns into sex…

A common theme with Battlestar…

Yeah, exactly. And I’m punching him and [the directors] are like, “but punch with love!” And I’m like, “how can you punch, full-on, with love?” And I get this kind of (groan) look and they’re like, “but love in your eyes!” And I’m like (takes deep breath).

Do you see Battlestar lasting as a franchise in the years to come, or do you think it’ll just be one of those sci-fi shows that’s ingrained in the vernacular, but faded away?

It’s a show that, unlike the Star Treks—which I’m not really very well versed in the Star Treks. I don’t know all the storylines, I’ve seen some obviously. A lot more can be done: there are funny-headed creatures, there are all these different species and things like that. With Battlestar, it’s humans and robots. And it’s a much more kind of poignant look at our society today than pure fantasy, and so my personal opinion is that it’s better to keep it shorter and sweeter and stronger than to just keep going on, and on, and on…

With more franchises, and books, and movies, and video games…

Exactly. And then I think it starts to lose some of its oomph. You start repeating things and granted, the world that we live in right now is giving us good fodder to keep the political allegory going on, but at the same time, I just feel like—I felt our first and second season were really great. I felt our third season faltered a bit because it was like, you don’t want to give away too much because you don’t know how long you’re going, but yet, you want to give away some. And it was sort of that season of, “okay, how much do we give away?” And that’s when they decided to make the fourth season the final season.

I think Ron Moore and David Eick, I know they decided that themselves, and they said, “no, we want to wrap the story up the way we want to tell the story. And we don’t want to just keep going to see as many…” I think at that point it just gets more about money instead of creativity, and let’s see how many episodes we can actually finally get, and how many seasons we can get. But the creativity falls by the wayside, and then finally the network goes, “okay you have two episodes to wrap everything up.”

And that’s not fair to the fans who have invested themselves in these storylines, and you’ve been teasing them all along the way with snippets. So I like the idea of having an entire season for them to wrap up the storylines, and even in the entire season there’s a lot. There’s a lot packed into every episode. The last ten, eleven episodes—I think the last episode ran long, so I think there’s going to be eleven instead of ten—I think they’re phenomenal. But they’re full. They’re full of revelations.

There was a big push about this as being the last season, and it is, it definitely ends with an ending. So I don’t want fans to worry: oh, well now they’re doing this BSG movie, trying to continue on… it’s just a filler-in. Without giving things away, it’s just filling in a few plot holes that you couldn’t really get to in the season, or maybe a few questions that are kind of brought up towards the end of the season that you didn’t really have time to focus on. So it’s just a little thing for the die-hard fans. A nice little wrapping-up at the very end of the entire series, and I think it’ll be well-received and fun.

NVision: Larrabee to Run Like Its 2006

Chris Moody — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 13:50:03 -0500

Nvidia has been pretty hard on Larrabee, saying the multi-core CPU/GPU is wishful thinking. PC Pro reported that Andy Keane Andy Keane, Nvidia general manager of the GPU computing group had this to say;

"There's an incredible amount about Larrabee that's undefined," explained Keane, commenting on the specifications so far released. "You can't just say 'it's x86 so it's going to solve the massively parallel computing problem.'" He went on to say, "Look at the PC, With an OS they don't control, and applications coming from everywhere... to say arbitrarily that everything's going to scale to 32 cores seems to me to be a bit of a stretch."

John Montrym, chief architect for the Nvidia’s GT200 core, also thinks Intel is off about Larrabee’s real world performance, but conceded that, "Intel is not a stupid company," he conceded. "They've put a lot of people behind this, so clearly they believe it's viable. But the products on our roadmap are competitive to this thing, as they've painted it. And the reality is going to fall short of the optimistic way they've painted it."

He goes on to quote blogger and CPU architect, Peter Glaskowsky, "the 'large' Larrabee in 2010 will have roughly the same performance as a 2006 GPU from Nvidia or ATI."

I think Montrym was right, "Intel is not a stupid company". Will they really release a video solution that will perform so under par with contemporary GPUs? I find that hard to believe. Nvidia may be counting its chickens before they hatch.

Time will tell, and when Larrabee launches we will see who will be eating crow, Nvidia or Intel. Who do you think is right?

Maximum PC invades NVision 08

Norman Chan — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 03:32:14 -0500

Ahoy hoy! This week, Maximum PC is going to be reporting from Nvision 08, Nvidia's three day visual computing festival in downtown San Jose. In addition to being a massive LAN party (bigger than the GeForce LANs of previous years), Nvision is also playing host to an epic gathering of Demo Scene developers, ready to show off their visual coding skills. We'll be there to sit in onthe keynotes to be given by Nvidia's CEO and Battlestar Galactica's Tricia Helfer (seriously?), check out the various workshop tracks, and test drive the new hardware and software on display. Keep your eyes peeled for daily photo galleries and event reports. And if you're in the area and going to Nvision yourself, stop by the exhibit hall on Tuesday at 2:30pm to watch a presentation run by our own Will Smith. Personally, I can't wait for the Buzz Aldrin meet and greet session and a chance to heckle the too-kool-for-skool hosts of Diggnation during their live recording session.Hope to see some MaxPC readers there.