NVIDIA nTeresting - 4 December 2009

• GPU Computing pwned at SC09, the conference for High Performance Computing. NVIDIA took the lead.
• NVIDIA is all about games...and we are applying what we learn there to new areas.
• Muvee and Movavi launched new applications that use NVIDIA GPUs for computing.
• Netbooks and notebooks benefit from NVIDIA GPUs by winning awards and garnering praise.
• 3D Vision is now available on a notebook.
• The big news for Flash 10.1 was GPU acceleration, but only NVIDIA got it right.
• CPUs are nice, but for gaming you need a GPU. Alienbabeltech puts it to the test.

SC09 = GPU Computing

SC09, held this year in Portland, Oregon, was a landmark show for NVIDIA and GPU Computing. The NVIDIA booth was buzzing with activity the whole event. The new Tesla-20 series GPUs drew the crowds who wanted to see the Fermi architecture -based processors in action.

"NVIDIA has deployed a highly attractive architecture in Fermi, with a feature set that opens the technology up to the entire computing industry," -- Jack Dongarra, director of the Innovative Computing Laboratory at the University of Tennessee and co-author of LINPACK and LAPACK.

NVIDIA and its ecosystem partners announced that it will deliver the industry's broadest set of software updates to developers using GPU Computing. The update features major releases across a broad spectrum of development standards, and makes it easier than ever for developers to take advantage of the GPU.

SC09 also saw NVIDIA highlight the very latest in 3D Internet technology with its RealityServer platform, which along with the iRay software, allows ray traced 3D images to be transmitted in near real-time to any web capable device, even a smartphone.

HPCWire did a podcast to wrap-up SC09 and called the winners and losers like they saw ‘em.

"What I hadn't predicted was how much NVIDIA was going to inspire programmers at the university level to catch on to this new wave of computing - people are psyched about this idea of doing programming on GPUs and ultimately that kind of maturity in the application ecosystem could be the tidal wave that helps them carry the game..... There's clearly a ton of momentum around GPUs, NVIDIA and CUDA specifically."

With more than 75 exhibitors showcasing NVIDIA Tesla products and talking about their use of GPUs there can be no doubt that GPU computing was a central theme of SC09.

NVIDIA Is About Gaming and More

Gaming is a traditional stronghold for NVIDIA GPUs and continues to be a huge area of focus for us. More importantly, it is a driving force for innovation in the computing industry, as we apply what we learn from gaming to new areas. The New York Times knows that GPUs can do much more than game:

"When combined, the technology let people move certain software jobs that usually run on Intel and Advanced Micro Devices chips onto graphics chips. And, as it turns out, the graphics chips proved very well suited to some tasks. In short, jobs that used to take days or hours suddenly finished in minutes. The technology proved appealing to scientific researchers in a variety of fields and some businesses that rely on the highest-end computers for tough jobs".

Parallel programming is the next big thing for the world of computing - it has started already. GPU Computing is causing this discontinuity by enabling massive parallelism to the masses. The New York Times recognizes that NVIDIA is leading that charge.

"NVIDIA's rivals, including Intel and A.M.D., have interest in similar technology, although they're playing catch-up for the moment. You'd be hard pressed to find A.M.D.'s competing technology at any of the booths here, and Intel has yet to release a graphics chip that fits into this market"

The balance of power between the CPU and GPU is changing to adapt to a fundamental shift in the demands placed upon today's PCs and Workstations.

Two New CUDA Applications

Recently a pair of new applications that take advantage of the NVIDIA CUDA architecture launched.

muvee, the pioneer in home movie making software and services, released muvee Reveal 8, which can create professional-looking home movies with muvee Reveal in minutes by uploading photos and video, selecting music, then choosing a style. With patented face and motion detection, muvee Reveal automatically selects the best scenes and syncs everything to the beat of the music. Users who have NVIDIA CUDA-enabled GPUs will see movies render up to 8 times faster and free up their CPUs to perform other tasks

Movavi, a multimedia-processing software developer, launched the English version of its new Video Converter as a part of the new Movavi Video Suite 8 package. Movavi Video Converter is a video and audio format converter that enables users to rip video & DVDs, convert video & audio, save media files for portable devices, download online video, play videos and burn them to DVDs. It is 5 times faster with an NVIDIA CUDA-enabled GPU.

Notebooks Go 3D For Real

ASUS and NVIDIA are launching 3D Vision technology in a notebook. NVIDIA is expanding the NVIDIA 3D Vision ecosystem to include high-definition notebook platforms that integrate advanced 120Hz 3D Vision-capable displays directly into the chassis for on-the-go 3D.

Introduced earlier this year for desktop PCs, NVIDIA 3D Vision technology instantly became the preferred 3D solution for playing computer games, watching movies, or viewing photographs in full resolution stereoscopic 3D.

Flash on ION Works, Others...Maybe

Press continued to test Flash 10.1, which added GPU acceleration to take over for underpowered CPUS. NVIDIA was the star of the show:

"I didn't have any single issue with Flash HD playback on any NVIDIA based system in our testing lab. Looks like cooperation between Adobe and NVIDA is really smooth and green California company is supporting biggest amount of GPUs from their offer, especially interesting ION. There is nothing much to say. NVIDIA is clear leader in multimedia and video applications and with Flash 10.1 just confirmed their superior status."

AMD, not so much:

"It looks worse for AMD, which is obviously not completely ready with the technology yet. The reviewer simply couldn't get the acceleration to work for ATI."

Not surprisingly, Intel integrated graphics over promised and under delivered, again:

"We tested Flash Player using the Samsung X120 ULV ultraportable with Intel Pentium SU4100 processor (1.3GHz, dual-core) and Intel GMA HD4500M graphics chipset. With Flash Player 10, the X120 doesn't handle the 1080p video that well - it plays, but is very jerky and the processor just isn't powerful enough for a good frame rate. After upgrading to the beta of Flash Player 10.1, the 1080p video plays back much more smoothly, but it still isn't perfect and the frame rate isn't as high as it could be."

GPU Powers Gaming

The benefits of investing in a high-performance GPU far outweigh the benefits of adding a powerful CPU. Nowhere is this more true than in PC gaming.

"Don't believe the "you're CPU limited under 4 GHz" and the "you need quad-core to game" myths. If you always configure your games to use the highest playable settings, any decent mainstream dual-core CPU is enough to push the graphics system into being the primary bottleneck, thereby erasing most practical differences the fastest quad-core setups potentially offer.

If you have any kind of limited budget, sink as much money as you can into the graphics card, and also buy the biggest monitor with the biggest resolution you can afford. Then configure all of your games to run at the highest playable settings to fully take advantage of your purchase. You'll utilize your hardware far better this way, instead of using settings that are too low and squander GPU performance".

Undoubtedly the GPU is destined to be the most essential processor of the 21st century. Photos, video, 3D graphics are the most popular and important forms of data today and the graphics processor is the perfect processor for this content and an area of exciting innovation. For the best experience, you should buy a PC with the right balance of GPU/CPU horsepower.