Hasta La Gadget!

What’s a Game Developers Conference without some sweet new tools for developers to sink their teeth into? Khronos Group, the association behind OpenGL, has today announced the fourth generation of its cross-platform API spec, which takes up the mantle of offering a viable competitor to Microsoft’s DirectX 11. The latest release includes two new shader stages for offloading geometry tessellation from the CPU to the GPU, as well as tighter integration with OpenCL to allow the graphics card to take up yet more duties off the typically overworked processor — both useful additions in light of NVIDIA’s newfound love affair with tessellation and supposed leaning toward general purpose GPU design in the Fermi chips coming this month. Lest you don’t care that much about desktop gaming, OpenGL ES (Embedded Systems, a mobile offshoot of OpenGL) is the graphics standard on “virtually every shipping smart phone,” meaning that whatever ripples start on the desktop front will be landing as waves on your next superphone. If that holds true, we can look forward to more involvement from our graphics chips beyond their usual 3D duties and into spheres we tend to care about — such as video acceleration. Now you care, don’t ya?

OpenGL 4.0 arrives, brings more opportunities for general purpose GPU action originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 11:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’re still not happy with NVIDIA’s failure to publish anything on its site alerting users about the doom that may befall them if they switched to the 196.75 drivers, but the company’s making an effort to get back into our good books with the first official video of its forthcoming GeForce GTX 480 and even a benchmark run against ATI’s flagship single-GPU card, the HD 5870. It looks like you’ll need to jack in a pair of auxiliary power connectors — one 8-pin and one 6-pin — to power the first Fermi card, as well as plenty of clearance in your case to accommodate its full length (stop giggling!). NVIDIA’s benchmarking stressed the GTX 480’s superior tesselation performance over the HD 5870, but it was level pegging between the two cards during the more conventional moments. It’s all well and good being able to handle extreme amounts of tesselation, but it’ll only matter to the end user if game designers use it as extensively as this benchmark did. As ever, wait for the real benchmarks (i.e. games) before deciding who wins, but we’re slightly disappointed that NVIDIA’s latest and greatest didn’t just blow ATI’s six-month old right out of the water. Benchmarking result awaits after the break, along with video of the new graphics card and a quick look at NVIDIA’s 3D Vision Surround setup. Go fill your eyes.

Continue reading NVIDIA GTX 480 makes benchmarking debut, matches ATI HD 5870 performance (video)

NVIDIA GTX 480 makes benchmarking debut, matches ATI HD 5870 performance (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 06 Mar 2010 07:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You’ve been wondering, we know, why the newly unveiled 2540p and 2740p EliteBooks from HP weren’t accompanied by their heavyweight compadre, the 8740w, but as it turns out the latter might be taking a bit longer to launch due to its inclusion of ATI’s as yet unannounced FirePro M7820 GPU. Joining up with the earlier leaked M5800, this is likely to form the backbone of ATI’s pro graphics refresh, with its innards based on the successful HD 5870, meaning it offers DirectX 11 functionality, 1GB of GDDR5 memory, and probably the most graphical horsepower your lap has ever seen. This is aided by the low-voltage, but highly potent Core i7-720QM CPU and four DDR3 slots for up to 16GB of RAM on the 8740w. You have until the end of the month to figure out what to do with all that power, which is when the rumormongers expect this machine to be announced.

[Thanks, Reznov]

HP EliteBook 8740w specs begin to take shape, ATI FirePro M7820 revealed originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Mar 2010 08:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Along with its introduction of the HD 5830, ATI announced the HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 card yesterday, which predictably comes with six DisplayPort outputs and enables that hallowed six-screen gaming overload that the Eyefinity branding has been about since the beginning. Some lucky scribes over at PC Pro have been treated to a live demonstration of what gaming at 5,760 x 2,160 feels like, and their understated response was to describe it as “far more immersive.” No kidding. They did raise the spectral figure of those monitor bezels, however, pointing out that bezel correction — where the image “behind the bezel” is rendered but hidden making the overall display look like a window unto the game world — habitually obscured text and game HUD elements. In their view, the sweet spot remains a triple-screen setup, and we’re inclined to agree (particularly if they look like this). For those interested in getting their multi-monitor gaming up and running, we’ve linked an invaluable guide from HardOCP below, which breaks down how much you can expect from ATI’s current HD 5000 series of cards, and also provides a video guide to setting your rig up.

ATI’s six-screen Eyefinity madness reviewed, fatal flaw found originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 04:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Anyone familiar with the constantly shifting release dates and delays that characterize GPU refresh cycles will have been impressed by ATI’s execution of the Evergreen series release. Starting out at the top with its uber-performance parts, the company kept to an aggressive schedule over the winter and can now boast a fully fleshed out family of DirectX 11 graphics processors built under a 40nm process. The fact that NVIDIA has yet to give us even one DX11 product is testament to the enormity of this feat. But as dedicated geeks we want more than just the achievements, we want to know the ins and outs of ATI’s resurgence and the decisions that led to its present position of being the market leader in features and mindshare, if not sales. To sate that curiosity, we have our good friend Anand Shimpi with a frankly unmissable retrospective on the development of the RV870 GPU that was to become the Evergreen chips we know today. He delves into the internal planning changes that took place after the delay of the R5xx series, the balancing of marketing and engineering ambitions, and even a bit of info on features that didn’t quite make it into the HD 5xxx range. Hit the source link for all that precious knowledge.

AnandTech goes behind the scenes of ATI’s RV870 / Evergreen GPU development originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Feb 2010 05:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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