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

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!