NVIDIA nTerresting News: 20 August 2010

In this Issue:

• Mafia II reviews all say GeForce is the way to go.
• Lost Planet 2 shows that GeForce 400 Series of GPUs is DirectX 11 done right.
• Rage3D is the top ATI fan site on the web, and even they gave the GeForce 460 a perfect 5 stars.
• 3D Vision owners can have a new toy, the Fujifilm FinePix Real 3D W1 3D camera.

Mafia II is Best on GeForce

Mafia II Previews are out this week, and they all agree that Mafia II plays best on GeForce.

"The game opens up another level of realism when playing with PhysX and 3D Vision. If you have not had the opportunity to try it out for yourself, you should."

PhysX is a difference maker in Mafia II. With GeForce and ‘graphics plus' you get a completely different experience in the game.

"Turning PhysX off results in a hum-drum gameplay that resembles 3rd person shooters from the early part of the decade but with Ambient occlusion and higher res textures."

PhysX makes it more immersive.

"Environment realistically shatters into a million pieces, those effects makes Mafia II more lifelike. When PhysX is turned on we see a more realistic and natural world in the game."

NVIDIA supports industry standards like DirectCompute and OpenCL. But we do not see any reason to wait to give our customers a better gaming experience, so we also support standards that allow us to innovate faster. GeForce owners can experience GPU accelerated physics today, and they have over 400 games to choose from for 3D Vision.

Lost Planet 2 is DirectX 11, GeForce is DX 11 Done Right

Lost Planet 2 is a cool new DirectX 11 game that is coming soon, and they released a benchmark this week. The benchmark shows that GeForce is DirectX11 done right.

"With the addition of DirectX11 features in the game NVIDIA takes the performance crown with a huge lead over ATI's 5800 series cards."

Lost Planet 2 is a The Way It's Meant to be Played title. Our TWIMTBP program is not about paying off developers with bags of money. We have piles of tools for DirectX, OpenGL, OpenCL and CUDA. We have piles of sample code. We have over 50 engineers who go onsite and add effects, fix bugs, tweak performance and train developers in open standards and standards that allow NVIDIA to innovate for our customers. We have a lab that runs developers games through THOUSANDS of PC configurations (both NVIDIA and AMD GPUs) for QA purposes. These leads to two results: better games and better game play for GeForce customers.

"The GTX 480 is the faster card all-around to begin with, but it's with the DX11 modes when it really pulls ahead."

We work very hard to make games work flawless and to make games more engaging and fun to play. Rule #1 is "do no harm" and we do not go in to break AMD GPUs or make them work slower.

"NVIDIA have always had a good relationship with Capcom's Lost Planet team and that shows in the benchmark for the latest version of the game. When setting the resolution to 1920x1080 and applying maximum detail settings the GTX 460 AMP! is significantly faster than the two Radeons."

TWIMTBP makes PC games better. Making PC games better is good for the gaming industry. Making PC games better is good for gamers. Making PC games better is really just innovation.

ATI Fan site: GeForce GTX 460 Gets 5 Stars

Rage3D is an ATI fan site, their words, not mine.

"Rage3D is the largest ATI support community and website on the internet. It all started in the summer of 1998 when Roki and MrB, both avid 3D hardware enthusiasts, wanted to further their knowledge and in doing so help other users. In July of that year, they decided to start up an ATI-centric webpage."

So we were intrigued when they decided to look at the GeForce GTX 460.

"Rage3D awards the EVGA GeForce GTX 460 SuperClocked 1GB video card 5 stars! Redefining performance and value at the low $200 price range, this is card to beat for hi-definition gaming value. Working Stereo3D and PhysX options, plus great driver support make this card definitely no Bullwinkle. Adrieeeeeeennnnnnnee!

Thanks to Caveman Jim for the fair look at our stuff.

Another 3D Camera

Fujifilm announced their second generation FinePix REAL 3D W3 Camera. Like its predecessor, the Fujifilm FinePix Real 3D W1, the W3 has two built-in lenses and image sensors, which makes it an ideal solution for capturing true 3D imagery and it works great with a 3D Vision system.

"I really enjoyed capturing photos of friends or landscapes because these looked more dynamic in 3-D. From a helpful booklet of tips for making better 3-D photos that comes with this camera, I learned to make sure I was standing about four to five feet away from my subject and to take photos with varying degrees of depth in them, including a foreground and background. Friends who stuck out their arms while holding objects looked like they were reaching out at me when I played the photos back on the preview screen. And videos were even more impressive."

NVIDIA 3D Vision lets you view immersive 3D pictures on your 3D PC with the built in NVIDIA 3D Vision Photo viewer. The photo viewer is automatically installed with the 3D Vision driver and supports viewing stereoscopic 3D photograph files, including those taken with the Fujifilm FinePix REAL 3D point and shoot camera. In addition, you can edit the 3D effects as well for a customized 3D pop-up experience.

With the FinePix REAL 3D W3 camera, 3D Vision owners have one more for their toy box.