NVIDIA nTeresting - 5 February 2010

In this Issue:

• Alienware put a powerful GPU into a tiny, little laptop. Now gaming is ultra portable.
• GPUs are increasing in importance, and now Office 2010 recommends one.
• PhysX and 3D Vision set GeForce GPUs apart from the competition. Dark Void and BioShock 2 are good examples of how they do it.
• WETA Workshop picks GPU computing, and NVIDIA gets bigger into the Hollywood scene.
• Intel disappoints with Pine Trail Performance, NVIDIA ION is still faster.
• ATI has driver issues.

World's First Gaming Netbook

Alienware made a splash at CES with the Alienware M11x, a CNET Best of CES 2010 winner. It is a tiny laptop full of GPU horsepower. They took a sub 12-inch laptop and equipped it with a powerful GeForce GT 335. Mad gaming. Good battery life. Only $799. 15-inch power in 11.6-inch package.

"In terms of performance and form factor alone, the M11x is an amazing machine, but when you pair that with its alluring starting price of just $799, it is tough to beat."

I've seen it billed as the world's smallest gaming rig and world's most powerful sub 12-inch laptop. Another world's first, made possible by NVIDIA technology. Check it out in this video for the scoop or take a tour with Laptop Magazine.

Office 2010 needs a GPU

GPU Computing is the use of the massively parallel architecture of the graphics processing unit (GPU) as a computational engine that can be programmed with high level languages and APIs. Fact is, More and more processing is being moved from the CPU to the GPU. We already have a great roster of applications that run on the NVIDIA CUDA architecture that consumers love. Video has been the killer application for the GPU, and a number of new video applications are able to tap into the computing power of the GPU. Adobe has added support for GPU computing to their popular CS4 Suite, Flash 10.1 and their Mercury Playback Engine. Now Microsoft is adding Office 2010 to the list.

"Microsoft has published the hardware requirements for the upcoming Office 2010 Suite, and people noticed one surprising addition: A DirectX compatible Video Processor. Over at the TechNet blog, Microsoft explains why:

If your computer has a GPU, it lets us perform graphics rendering tasks (like drawing charts in Excel, or transitions in PowerPoint) in the GPU instead of in the CPU, which parallelizes work and speeds up performance. This is particularly relevant for users of PowerPoint 2010, which will introduce some awesome new graphics and video integration features (more info at the PowerPoint team blog)."

CPUs are an important component of the PC. However, too often PCs ship with insufficient graphics processing power and the result is an unbalanced PC that can't run the applications you want. For the best experience, you should buy a PC with the right balance of CPU/GPU horsepower.

GeForce Gives You More Better Goodness

BioShock was a landmark game. The sequel is highly anticipated. How anticipated? So much so that preordering the game was on my 13 year olds Christmas list. The game is due to ship in later this quarter. Bioshock 2 just got awesomer. They are using NVIDIA 3D Vision to make PC gaming experience better than the console.

"No, there is multiplayer on the PC version. I don't know what I can say because I don't want to get in trouble, but I will say that the PC version is in 3-D. If you have the glasses and all the tech, you can put it on and see it in 3-D. That would be the only difference between all three platforms."

Dark Void is using NVIDIA PhysX technology to add realism.

"Actually the key to this title is that it's based on PhysX technology, and they have taken it to the maximum in this game. Many people were told that PhysX was useless, that it was not worth it, did not bring a different experience... Well I can tell you such words either come from uneducated people, or from people that do not own a compliant system that allows them to enjoy it. PhysX is relevant, and to a very large extent. In this title they wanted to do a showcase to demonstrate how PhysX can handle thousands of particles individually and the result is fantastic with spectacular realism."

NVIDIA uses unique technologies like PhysX and 3D Vision to push PC gaming forward. While other GPU owners will be waiting for standards to be finalized, GeForce owners will be playing BioShock 2 in 3D and Dark Void with PhysX. Maybe a GeForce owner will let you have a turn?

WETA Workshop Turns to GPUs

Peter Jackson is a big deal in Hollywood with the Lord of the Rings, and all. His WETA Workshop did the special effects for The Lord of the Rings, King Kong, and most recently was nominated for a special effects Oscar for Avatar. He needs more power, and he is turning to GPUS to get it. Weta Digital is already on the path to embracing GPUs for film production, so it looks like they're carrying that over to their TV production work, too.

The creator of the special effects for LoTR, King Kong, Avatar, Halo the Movie and many more - announced that it is adopting GPGPU-accelerated software for their TV production as the most cost efficient solution.

CPUs are no longer increasing in clock speed yet consumers are demanding more from their PCs today than ever before. In order to provide the much needed performance to deliver on these consumer expectations, the only path available is to go multi-core or parallel - ie: add more cores and split demanding workloads across them. Due to the very nature of computer graphics, GPUs excel at doing many things at once and as such are ideally suited to this new computing environment. What GPU's bring is a massively parallel approach to the problem with 100's of cores.

Intel Continues to Flub Graphics

Hot on the heels of the Larrabee fiasco, Intel continues to take a beating on the graphics front, this one for PineTrail. After the promise of more performance, comes the sad reality.

"Those hailing the Pine Trail as a godsend to netbooks graphics ultimately misconceived what the GMA 3150 controller could do. Compared to NVIDIA's ION platform (currently the only way to get good graphics on a netbook) it is completely out of its league, and only looks good compared to the original Atom's GMA 950."

Graphics performance hasn't really changed with Pine Trail. ION will continue to deliver 5-10x faster performance than Pine Trail systems. If you care about watching video on YouTube or Hulu, want to edit videos or convert them to your smartphone, or play mainstream games, ION netbooks and nettops are the best choice. Pine Trail provides a very limited experience. Too bad for netbook buyers.

"And this gives them the ability to take easy, cheap, sloppy routes for chip development, while also hurting the consumer by trying to prevent a product like the Ion 2 from making its way to netbooks. Plain and simple like the early 2000s: a complacent Intel is a bad Intel."

Despite Intel's actions, we have innovative products that we are excited to introduce to the market in the months ahead. We know these products will bring with them some amazing breakthroughs that will surprise the industry. An Intel CPU and an NVIDIA GPU make a great combo.

ATI Drivers...Awwwwwkward!

There has been an unusual amount of activity in the forums from Radeon users complaining about stability issues with HD 5000 series graphics cards. Most of the complaints appear to be focused on the HD 5870, HD 5850 and HD 5770. Problems include grey screens, crashes, colored stripes on screens and system hang-ups. Here are some of the reports from around the web.

"A significant amount of ATI users have taken to the AMD user to user forums to complain about grey screens, crashes and colored-striped hangups. (There's actually countless forums out there with threads like this...between them, have collected nearly 40 pages of possible causes..."

This comes soon after reports of a stop ship of the upcoming HD 5830 graphics card:

"A last minute issue discovered during the validation of ATI Radon HD 5830-based reference boards has prompted AMD to postpone the cards from their scheduled launch on January 25...AMD has already decided to retrieve related boards for further investigation."

Blame this one on Tweaktown:

"Let's not kid ourselves. Just days before the end of the month comes to a close, ATI squeezes out a Catalyst driver, I think it's safe to say that this driver is more so to keep the flawless monthly release record than to bring massive improvements or new features. The driver seems so rushed out that someone forgot to update the Catalyst Control Center to actually say 10.1."

We work to avoid issues like this with a robust developer relations program we call "The Way It's Meant To Be Played. AMD hates it and tries to mis-position it in "Fuddy" interviews by calling it a marketing program where we pay to have a logo in a game. But the proof is in the pudding.

"NVIDIA has forged a close relationship with many game developers through its "The Way It's Meant To Be Played" program and other initiatives. Often, lately, newly released titles have worked better on NVIDIA GPUs"

We work closely with developers, often in their own buildings, to help them program games. We provide them numerous testing tools, sample code and large scale compatibility testing. That is what makes "The Way It's Meant To Be Played" such a threat to AMD.

Power for High Definition gaming and ultra portability in a single laptop is no longer a fantasy. In fact, fantasy games are going to look great! The Alienware M11x redefines the gaming capabilities of a truly portable laptop by cramming in graphics capabilities that enable 720p gaming at 30 FPS (Frames per Second). Add on long battery life and light weight, and then ask what more could the 'on the move' gamer want...