NVidia NV17M Mobile GPU Preview

Mathew Solnik writes: "A year ago nVidia set the laptop world on fire with the release of the GeForce2 Go mobile graphics chipset. Today they push the envelope with the release of the NV17M mobile graphics chipset. Offering unmatched performance in 3D gaming applications, the NV17M promises to put nVidia at the forefront of high end graphics solutions for mobile systems. This GPU is much faster then the Geforce2 Go and is more or less the Geforce3 for laptops. Check out AMDZone for the preview." Pretty incredible how powerful laptops are, even given their lag behind desktop performance. This is far more powerful than any video card I've ever owned.

Comments

Ugh.

[Anonymous Coward]

A year ago nVidia set the laptop world on fire with the release of the GeForce2 Go mobile graphics chipset.

<insert obligatory overheating joke here> Anyway, please pick the submissions a little more carefully. I don't want to read press releases on Slashdot.

Re:Laptop Gaming

[SquadBoy]

Not so much for gaming but in my last job I talked to many people who wanted "awesome gfx" on their laptops to do presentations using high end (http://www.ptc.com) cad/cam packages. It was just easier in many cases for them to do the presentation on a laptop. That is one of the business reasons for this.

Re:Laptop Gaming

[ihatelisp]

-the small screen

You can connect the laptop to a monitor, or even a big screen TV in your living room. Moving a laptop to the living room is a lot easier than moving your desktop.

-the cramped keyboard

Who plays games with a keyboard? Get a gamepad or a joystick.

-the battery life....

It should be easy enough to find a electric outlet if you're indoor. When I carry my laptop on the go, I rarely have to use my battery.

Embeded DRAM

[scottnews]

OK if this doesn't make you drool, then you must be at the wrong web site.

I can see Nvidia's next generation GPU to have embeded DRAM. This one is soo close.

great and LCD refresh rates ?

[johnjones]

I never saw the point myself

great you can mangle triangles and blit them to the screen fast

OR

have 2 hours more working time

now on a trip on a train which would you rather have

intel have finally woken up to power with transmeta breathing down their backs and you guys want to waste it useing these cards.

hell Xscale / MIPS with a LCD controller on chip is way for me

regards

john jones

Re:great and LCD refresh rates ?

[Sycraft-fu]

Some things:

1) When the chip is working with 2d, it does not consume max power. Like all processors consumption is based on how hard it is working. Now granted, something like this won't be as low power as say a Rage Mobility, it still has sufficiently low drain to work in a laptop.

2) The target kind of laptops for this are, by their nature, large high drain devices. They probably have large LCDs (15"), fast processors (900mhz+) lots of ram and so on. Computers like that also tend to pack lots of battery power. We have some new Dell C810s at work with the GeForce 2 Go and when you stick both battries in they can really last a long time, even when doing 3d work.

3) Some people would rather have a single system than a desktop and a laptop. In that case, having powerful grapics can be important. For some, work requires it, and for others, it games. And please, don't give me any shit about game on PCs or that you ought to own a console or the like. Having fun is important and some of us really like PC games.

I get a little sick of people whining about the power consumption of digital devices in general. Yes, companies should strive to make devices that minimize power drain, and believe it or not by and large they do, however there are legimate reasons to want to own high drain devices with lots of silicon. If a tiny MIPS computer works for you, fine, use it, but please dont' assume that the rest of us don't have legitmate uses for beefier systems. That use may well just be to amuse ourselves, but that is a perfectly good use.

time for an upgrade....

[Marcus Brody]

Yes, this is a silly comparison:

NV17M Marcus' home PC
_____________________________
350MHz 200MHz
64MB 32MB
2048*1536 640*320
1 square inch 2 square feet

Erm. Quake? Whats that....

Flawed numbers?

[jeremy f]

I'm beginning to doubt the performance ratings. The 17M rates at 40.9 fps for Max Payne at 1024x768x16, and 79.5 fps for Q3 at 1024x768x32. It also says for relative performance that in Q3, the 17M outperforms the GF2Go by 5x, and in Max Payne by 3.5x. I know for a fact that this cannot be the case, because I have an Inspiron 8000.

Here are the benchmarks for my system:

Q3 1024x768x32: 49.7. High Detail.
Max Payne 1024x768x16: (no FPS display, definitely playable, I'd say ~24). Max Detail.

The system is a 1ghz/256M running Windows 2000. Unless NVidia's benchmarks were done on say, a 500mhz laptop, I'd imagine much better performance than what they'd note; especially nothing that NONE of the benchmarks broke the 100 fps mark, when according to my numbers, they should have creamed it (Q3 1024 at 5X GF2 should have been 250 fps, and Max Payne should have been near 90).

Re:Laptop Gaming

[rlangis]

Small screen? Are you high? 14.1" is very nearly a 17" CRT! Some high-end laptops are touting a 15" screen even. Max resolution (or should I say 'optimized resolution'?) is somewhere in the 1500x1400 range.

Cramped keyboard? Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't close keys a BOON while gaming? No more having to stretch to reach ctrl-7 - the keys are MUCH closer together.

Uhm...if you game, and are on battery power... Why aren't you using the power block? Laptops aren't *always* about being on battery power.

Mobility does not necessarily mean 'cut off from civilization'. If I had spurious amounts of cash, I'd buy a very high-end laptop. 30+ gig HD, GeForce Video, DVD/CD-RW, 15" screen, 256M at minimum... All in one, small, easy to carry package. The wife has a new Inspiron 8100. Everything, and I do mean *everything* is on board. Why NOT use it for gaming? I'd rather pack a 8-lb laptop over to my friend's house and plug in ONE cord (or two; one for power, one for network, if he doesn't have a WAP) than a 30-lb tower, 40+ lb monitor, a pack full of cables and other assorted hardware...

I might be able to make more room for the Vodka!

Re:but ... isn't it still just a laptop?

[Xerithane]

I use my laptop for just about everything. It gets probably 10x more usage than my desktops do. I have a Toshiba 850Mhz with the GeForce2 Go and it dual boots Linux for development and Win2K for gaming. It is pretty much my ultimate machine. Great soundsystem with headphones, and superb graphics performance. If doing visual development in X, having a 3d accelerator rocks, and I also do play Chromium BSU on there when I need a few minutes of utmost carnage to cool down my mind from a coding session.

It works absolutely beautiful as a gaming platform and as a development box. I regularly play CounterStrike, Unreal, and Starcraft (real box breaker there..) I'm not sure of any game that is on the market that is not well playable on it.

Think "DVD"

[mblase]

The review/preview makes a big deal about how most laptop DVD players drain the batteries before the movie is entirely over, or very shortly after. Using a dedicated graphics chip to render the animation should improve the battery life by quite a bit.

Re:Laptop Gaming

[FallLine]

Not necessarily. I've got a GeForce2 Go in my laptop. Besides the fact that it runs desktop applications a good deal better at 1600x1200, I often play games on it (either Docked or hooked up to an external K/V/M).

It really is nice to be able to do _everything_ on one computer and to be able to carry that computer where ever you go (e.g., work, home, beach house, etc).

My personnal wishlist...

[tcc]

EVERYTHING is there in a laptop to replace an average workstation, but there's one thing I'd really like for overall performance boost... if you can stick a high power processor, high resolution LCD panel with super brightness, and have a 3d GPU in the lot, how about IDE raid, imagine having 2x48GB striped under your laptop, a second drive wouldn't take that much more volume (ok forget about the ultrathin or small laptops, we're talking about a nice workstation replacement here :)) I'd like booting off a laptop faster... IDE RAID would be the best solution for speed increase in that area. The drawback of course would be doubling the chance of losing data but then again you could also put mirroring or striping as options (so mirroring would actually ensure data integrity from disk drive failure).

I am using a Dell 8100 notebook 512MB ram, external 80GB firewire drive for dumping data that I won't access too often, 48GB 2.5" drive, overall my rating is 9/10, it ROCKS, the IDE raid thing would really be welcomed but I know it's not a mainsream request, unfortunately.

Re:Fewer polygons...

[hublan]

more drivers that don't _FUCKING NOT COMPILE_!

Does that mean that they do compile?

Obsolete in 1 hour!!!

[Magus311X]

Today my Dell Inspiron 8100 came in. PIII 1GHz-M, 384M memory, 30G disk, 8X DVD, 15.1" Super XGA+ screen that does 1440x1050, and a 32M DDR GeForce 2 Go.

I thought I was king of the world. So I throw it on my LAN and go to slashdot...

... to see the upcoming GeForce3 Go be announced.

Noooooooooooooooooooooo!!! It's not fair! ;*(
-----

Obligatory Open Source argument...

[Speare]

nVidia supplies source code only for the 2D functionality on their cards to date, apparently because their technology draws on some patent-encumbered features from third parties (rumored SGI). nVidia flatly refuses (and indeed cannot) release the specifications to Open Source developers.

nVidia supplies a binary precompiled OpenGL-accelerated driver for Linux, or rather several varieties for different kernel configurations. However, those precompiled drivers are (1) not supported by some distributions (e.g., Red Hat) because they can't be properly debugged, fixed or improved by distribution-producing companies, and (2) are unstable for some people running Linux for unknown reasons. A badly written kernel plugin can wreak plenty havoc on the whole running system, with little protection.

Matrox and ATi are more supportive of the Open Source world, because they are in control of their own technologies and see the benefit of many developers collaborating on their drivers. DRI support can move forward to get fast and safe access to video hardware without endangering the safety or security of the rest of the machine.

One of the Windows technologies' biggest problem is the unexplained BSoD. Death from nowhere with little explanation. The major cause of BSoDs is poorly written device drivers which run in an unprotected ring zero environment. One bad instruction can ruin your whole machine's state. Is this what we want for the Linux environment? Are we going to keep adding unprotected, unknown and undebuggable closed source solutions into the Linux kernel, adding more and more sources of kernel lockups? Do we need to start talking about a PSoD (Penguin Screen of Death)?

I'm looking forward to the upcoming drivers for new ATi Radeon cards, myself. Open Source DRI/DRM drivers and solid 2D and 3D performance. How about you?