3DLabs Launching New GPU

h0tblack writes "...or VPU as they've seen fit to call it. The Register is reporting that 3DLabs will be releasing the P10 later this year. It's targeted at workstation and gaming markets with OpenGl2.0 and DX9 drivers having been seeded to developers already. Could be interesting as 3DLabs have been one of the key players in the development of OpenGL2.0. The P10 has over 200 SIMD processors throughout its geometry, texture and pixel processing pipeline stages to deliver over 170Gflops and one TeraOp of programmable graphics performance together with a full 256-bit DDR memory interface for up to 20GBytes/sec of memory bandwidth. More info can be found in the press release." There are also examinations of the new chip on Anandtech, Tom's Hardware, and no doubt many other hardware sites too.

Comments

Beyond3d

[linzeal]

Beyond3d, home to many respected (and notorious ) workers at various 3d companies such as nvidia, ati, and bitboys are discussing this right now.

Re:High-End Video Cards

[4of12]

No, that's not a typo, these graphics cards cost as much as a nice Athlon system.

I don't care. It's still a lot cheaper than a top of the line SGI workstation.

The ratio of costs for all the parts in a typical PC
(motherboard:CPU:disk:powersupply:OS:graphicscard)
have shifted some over the years. More accurately, though, as the performnce of certain keys pieces has increased to adequately fulfill the needs of the users, it's natural to start looking to satisfy unmet needs.

An OpenGL card like this would be wonderful for scientific visualization, CAD, CAM, etc.

While the price is an important point, in my market $600-$900 is not a big deal.

Re:A question...

[afidel]

Yeah Max Payne, Try full detail, 1280*1024*32bpp, 4XAA. That will push even a GF4 Ti 4600 to the point where min framrate is aproaching single digits. Unreal Tournament 2003, 1280*1024*32, no AA averages 38fps on the Ti4600, again lowest frame rate is almost surely well below 30 fps so there will be times that it looks jerky. While the poly counts may be the thing most touted in press releases the thing that most gamers are starting to look at are what kind of performance can I get with all the goodies turned on.

Re:How long til we see THIS Slashdot article?

[Junks Jerzey]

Really, these things are getting massively more complicated than your ordinary P4 or Athlon.

Not really, though. They have simple units, then they put a whole bunch of them on there. They don't need nonsense like branch prediction and register renaming and all that. But they certainly are complicated in their own way.

Creative has bought 3d labs

[gargle]

It's worth pointing out that Creative has bought 3d labs, and Creative's CEO Sim Wong Hoo has every intention of taking 3d Labs out on an aggressive push into the consumer 3d market. See article.

Re:What are those GFLOPS they mention?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes and No -- If your only operations are
multiplying 4x4 matricies and 4x1 vectors, and you
pay very close attention to the programming docs,
then yes you can perform 170 billion floating
pt ops per second. But it's not something you
could use as a general purpose processor.

This is what OpenGL 2.0 is about

[marm]

OpenGL 2.0 addresses exactly your concerns - a vendor-neutral shader programming language, and this is precisely why you're seeing 3Dlabs pushing hard for it. It seems they will be first to market with a fully programmable graphics pipeline, and they need the software technology to go with it...

DirectX 9 also addresses the same issues and provides a standard shader language (actually DirectX 8.1 has a standard shader language already, but it lacks a certain amount of the programmability that will be present in DirectX 9), but there are a lot of reasons for the graphics card vendors to favour OpenGL over DirectX. For instance:

• There are a lot of users of high-end 3D hardware for whom Windows is anathema. Think about all the effects shops that traditionally have used IRIX and are now moving over to Linux... DirectX ties the cards to Windows, OpenGL does not. This is a growing, and more importantly, prestige market for high-end PC 3D vendors... Linux is bringing them to the PC from SGI/IRIX solutions, and is bringing them sales with it. I think NVIDIA understand this one, just a shame few of the other 3D vendors do yet...
• There are an awful lot of 3D apps that are heavily tied into OpenGL and rewriting them for DirectX would be a serious undertaking, whilst modifying them for OpenGL 2.0 to take advantage of the new shader features and extra programmability of the graphics pipeline will be a relatively simple task in comparison.
• What if Microsoft decided to get into the 3D market by buying one of the existing major players? Sure, Microsoft might be responsive to the 3D vendors now, but I suspect they wouldn't be if they had a vested interest in one of the players. Perhaps it seems unlikely, but it seems Microsoft has ambitions in the hardware business - witness the X-Box. It's a doomsday scenario from the point of view of the 3D vendors, sure, but no doubt it's something that a few vendors have thought about.
• Even if Microsoft doesn't do such a thing, OpenGL allows them 3D vendors room to breathe - they can implement new features as they please without Microsoft having to give them the nod.

Hopefully OpenGL 2.0 will see a resurgence in OpenGL use. I don't like the idea of the 3D market being controlled by Microsoft, and I don't think the 3D vendors do either. Kudos to 3DLabs for leading the way!

Re:High-End Video Cards

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a gamer, and I'm more than willing to fork out $900 for a good video card.

I think that puts you very squarely into the "fuckwit" category, so the original poster was still right.

Re:OpenGL 2.0

[Penguinoflight]

Well, it depends on who you ask. According to SGI, it's OpenGL 1.3, but a few companies call it openGL 2.0. OpenGL 1.3 does have some impressive advantages, so it doesn't really matter. Remember, OpenGL isn't just specifications, it's a library, and it works a lot better than directx releases. (i.e. anything can be rendered in software, so you don't need to mess with libraries everytime a game or card is realeased.)