NVIDIA nTeresting Newsletter - 7 September 2012

In this Issue:

· GeForce GTX 660Ti won Best Gaming Tech at PAX Prime.

· Need advice on which games are best for your Nexus 7? Tegrazone and Gaming Illustrated can help.

· Quadro professional graphics solutions are a much needed companion to Adobe CS6.

· Dawnrunner CEO sings the production praises of NVIDIA Maximus.

· Mac Pro gets the power of Kepler-powered Quadro.

· Quadro well represented at IBC tradeshow in Amsterdam.

· Beach Buggy Blitz brings buggy-bumping, racing fun to Tegra-powered devices for free.

PAX Was Packed

In 2004, the folks at Penny Arcade decided they wanted a show exclusively for gaming. From that idea spawned a small 4,500 person event in Bellevue, Washington, focused on the culture and community that is gaming. Since then, the show has doubled in size each year. In 2010 the show expanded into Boston for PAX East, drawing tens of thousands of attendees in the inaugural year. The shows in Seattle and Boston represent the two largest gaming events in North America!

This week PAX Prime was held in Seattle. Once again, GeForce was the bell of the ball, and the GeForce GTX 660 Ti walked away with a best in show award for Best Gaming Tech. PC gaming was well represented.

"Nearly every booth that had games, had PC games. It goes to show where this industry is headed... Suffice to say, PC won my heart over this year."

Attendees hit the NVIDIA booth to play the hottest new games, including World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria, and could even check out a few unreleased titles. Attendees could also win a GeForce GTX 660 Ti card for themselves by participating in the GeForce GTX 660 Ti Weapon of Choice Photo Contest.

Gaming on a Nexus 7

Google's Tegra 3-powered Nexus 7 tablet is still getting rave reviews for its price and for the experience it delivers.

"It's not heavy, it fits the hand nicely and it has a beautiful 1280x800 screen, perfect for ebooks and magazines. It will play demanding games, play HD video and at just $199 it is without a doubt the best bang-for-buck tablet on the market today. The $249 16GB version is also a good deal and since the Nexus 7 has no microSD slot, it might be a worthwhile investment.

Build quality is good, the soft, rubberized finish on the back feels pleasant and durable. The lack of a rear facing camera could be an issue for some users, but you will have to learn to live without it.

In any case, if you are in the market for 7-inch tablet this is definitely the device to go for and we really can't recommend it enough."

And with great battery life you get a whole day's worth of entertainment in the palm of your hand. Need any recommendations? Gaming Illustrated has a list of must have games for the Nexus 7.

"We all know that the Nexus 7 is a great tablet, and in my review of it a short while ago I pointed out how brilliant it was for gaming thanks to its wonderful and powerful NVIDIA-made Tegra 3 processor. With the Nexus 7's size, it makes it an ideal platform for playing games, and with its ultra-high resolutions the games you play on the Nexus 7 look better than you have ever seen them before."

His list includes: Galaxy On Fire 2 THD, Shadowgun THD, Dead Trigger, Shine Runner, Riptide GP, and Heroes Call. Finding those games has been made easy.
"Thankfully NVIDIA has a website and application dedicated to games that you can play that make the most of the Tegra 3's power and special abilities."

Got CS6? Better get Quadro

Adobe's Creative Suite (CS) is widely used and has been an industry standard for creative professionals the last eight years. Adobe Creative Suite is a collection of graphic design, video editing, and web development applications made by Adobe Systems. The collection consists of Adobe's applications such as Photoshop, Acrobat, InDesign, Premiere Pro and After Effects. The latest version, Adobe Creative Suite 6 (CS6), was released on May 7, 2012. What do you need for CS6?

"Luckily, NVIDIA was kind enough to provide us with the perfect vessel for this expedition, the model 5000 of the Quadro series of professional graphics cards. Not only will the card enable us to maximize the performance of all Creative Suite applications, but it will also unlock some of the new, cool features that would be otherwise difficult to demonstrate without it. Prior to this article, the author used consumer-based GeForce GTX 480, and there was more than tangible performance difference between the two."

Whether in small agencies or the largest media conglomerates, creative pros want tools that let them bring their vision to life as fast as possible, without having to trade off quality for speed and interactivity. Now, with the release of Adobe CS6 Production Premium with acceleration from NVIDIA Quadro and Tesla professional GPUs, artists and editors have unprecedented power and interactivity at their disposal.

NVIDIA Maximus Makes Maximum Impression on Dawnrunner's CEO

Hey, it's one thing when we tell you about the incredible benefits of NVIDIA Maximus technology. It's another when a client tells you about it, in his own words, with no prompting from us. That's exactly what James Fox, the CEO of Dawnrunner Productions, based in San Francisco, did earlier this week on his blog, "Dawnrunner with NVIDIA Power!"

"I won't lie to you. Whenever we start a massive simulation, or render that would've taken a ridiculous amount of time on our other computers - the office chants "Maximus! Maximus! Maximus!" ala GLADIATOR. Fist pumping and everything. Then we get back to work. The biggest complaint I've heard of the system is that the ability to do simultaneous rendering and working means Rock Band has gone into the storage unit. No more breaks for renders."

NVIDIA Brings the Power of Quadro Kepler to the Mac Pro

Announced today, creative professionals demanding the strongest GPU performance possible for the Mac Pro now have it - based on NVIDIA Kepler architecture, the world's fastest, most efficient GPU design, the Quadro K5000 for Mac is the most powerful professional-class GPU ever for the Macintosh, delivering unprecedented visualization and computation capabilities for designers and digital content creators.

"The NVIDIA Quadro K5000 has great OpenGL and CUDA performance, so it's ideal to use as a shared GUI and image processing GPU in DaVinci Resolve 9," said Grant Petty, chief executive officer, Blackmagic Design. "Like many artists who use DaVinci Resolve, colorists seek the highest performance possible from their systems, and with just one of the new Kepler GPUs our users will be able to work with 4K imagery on their Mac Pros in real time."

NVIDIA Is Accelerating Breakthroughs Here, There, and Everywhere at IBC 2012

IBC kicked off today in Amsterdam. It's a worldwide conference and exhibition for professionals engaged in the creation, management and delivery of electronic media and entertainment content. We're showcasing to more than 50,000 show attendees the power that our latest GPU technologies provide to broadcasters, film and video post-production pros.

Key demos in our booth include:

· The next generation NVIDIA Maximus platform, powered by our new Quadro K5000 and Tesla K20 GPUs based on NVIDIA Kepler architecture.

· New NVIDIA Quadro K5000 for Mac

· NVIDIA VGX technology demonstration showing how artists and animators can access and interact with content remotely on light clients with full workstation performance.

We're also supporting Adobe's launch and demonstration in their booth of ‘Adobe Anywhere,' accelerated with NVIDIA Tesla GPUs, which they announced on Wednesday, September 5: https://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/201209/090512AdobeIBC.html.

Teach Me How To Buggy

No, it's not a new dance craze, Beach Buggy Blitz brings buggy-bumping fun to Tegra-powered devices like the immensely popular Nexus 7. Free-to-play and now available on Google Play, Beach Buggy Blitz is featured in TegraZone with exclusive enhancements including realistic object physics, real-time vehicle shadows, motion blur, water splash effects and dynamic lighting.

Dodge obstacles, such as pelicans, boulders and even giant crabs; fly off bridges and ramps, and artfully maneuver your way around competing racers along beautifully designed sandy racecourses. But be sure you hit those checkpoints before time runs out and ends your coin-collecting trek. You won't be alone in doing the Buggy, check out what press have been saying:

"The effects, physics, and gameplay take full advantage of NVIDIA's Tegra extensions, for one of the funnest driving games to ever hit Android."

"Overall, Beach Buggy Blitz is an enjoyable romp for an unbeatable price."

"All-in-all a breathtaking dollop of gorgeous eye-candy that blows the mittens off most other games."

"Of course there's a bit of real-time shadow rendering as well - and it's all so simple: you'll be running this fantasy of effects on your quad-core processor-toting Tegra 3 device"

So grab your favorite Tegra-powered device and do the... Buggy!