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NVIDIA's Lead Scientist Interviewed
rtt writes "bit-tech.net has up an interview with NVIDIA's chief scientist, David Kirk, about the PlayStation 3, next-generation architectures and what to expect in PC gaming. From the article: 'We're going to see the next generation of shader-based games. At the first generation, we saw people using a shader to emulate the hardware pipeline, and finding "Hey - this really is programmable". After that, they tried to do a few things with more lights, using perhaps eight instead of ten. Then they started to write material shaders, and they made great cloth and metal effects that we saw. People are now starting to change the lighting model, and are exploring the things that they can do with that.'"
Who cares how many lights the chipsets can emulate when the games themselves still suck?
- Just my $0.02, take with a grain of salt, your mileage may vary.
"After that, they tried to do a few things with more lights, using perhaps eight instead of ten. "
I wish I had more money. Like 50 bucks instead of 100 bucks.
If the XBOX 360 gets a 6 month jump on Sony, the results by the time the PS3 launches will be obvious. Sony's hardware may be more powerful in some respects, but the amount of work that needs to be done by the programmers is daunting.
While actual code is being written on the 360 side, my guess is the coders on the PS3 side are doing what this article suggests - feeling out the hardware. It means that a lot of the development environment is unfinished or at least unkempt. You've got a lot of power there, but learning to wield it is going to take quite some time - ESPECIALLY with the Cell processor.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Doom3 is not a game. It's a slightly interactive lighting simulator.
What I would like is for nVidia (and ATI) to start making lower power consumption a big goal for their new products. Can't we leave the era of 100-110Watts being the norm for new graphics card such as the GeForce 7800 GTX?
Scroogle
Here's the most important word that didn't appear anywhere in that article: OpenGL
They also had an interview with Richard Huddy from ATI a little back
All spelling mistakes are due to solar flares...honest
I am still of the opinion that Doom 3 was the finest lit and rendered game to date.
Which bit? The dark bit at the start, the very dark bit in the middle, or the super dark bit at the end? While there were a few glimpses of very nicely rendered scenes, for the most part it was just too dark to see anything. Plus the game was crap, but that's another matter.
It seems all development efforts goes into 3D gaming and no brains into vanilla PC requirements. Why is it impossible to find a reasonably priced, fanless graphics card with two DVI connectors? Why can't I have dual head graphics with hardware video acceleration/overlay on either monitor? Why don't Nvidia and ATI at least take care that the non-3D features of their cards are fully supported under Linux and X11? Yes, Matrox's cards come close, but even their vintage G550 require buggy binary X11 drivers.
gopher://cramer.plaintext.cc http://cramer.plaintext.cc:70
First, as others have noted, games still tend to suck overall so who cares how beautiful the graphics are? Beautiful crap is still crap.
Second, now that GPUs are competitive with CPUs for heat generation and electrical energy waste, are we giving up altogether on efficiency and just consigning ourselves to needing ever better coolers, paying more electrical costs, etc., just to play some beautiful crap?
Not me. Gone are the days of being able to stick all these game machines, DVD players, media PCs, etc. in a small enclosed space of an entertainment center. Now I'll have to place my TV near to a window and buy a standalone air conditioner so I can pipe the hot air flow out and cool all my stuff to keep it from immolating my living room.
I don't think so. If we're going to use up so much horsepower for this, we might as well at least get someone to use it as the power source for a lava lamp. That might be more fun to watch than Doom 3.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
Have you ever read any of the proceedings from SIGGRAPH? Yes, people do get their Ph.D's in that stuff.
among other things, designing next generation graphics cards is a serious exercise in computer architecture, vlsi design, and algorithm development; these people arent just system integrators or product engineers...next generation stuff has to come from somewhere other than a reference design...these people are absolutely scientists.
you dont need a beaker and a lab coat to be considered a scientist.
dude.
One example of a reasonably priced, fanless GPU is the FX5200, which can be had at electronic stores for $50-$70. The plain FX5200 is passively cooled, and most manufacturers include only one video output on it. The slightly faster FX5200 Ultra requires a fan for the increased heat, and would probably include two video outputs. The ones I've seen with two outputs had one VGA and one DVI. Surely someone is producing one with two DVIs.
I just purchased a FX6600GT for $165. For its performance, I'd call that reasonably priced, and it includes two DVI outputs, but has a fan.
I'd prefer to see video cards with passive heat sinks too, but the silicon process just isn't there yet. It is getting closer, however.
It isn't nVidia's job to make games more entertaining or 'GOOD'. That is more the developer's job and I don't see why so many posters are ignoring this fact.
With the new high dynamic range lighting systems and 12-bit output to monitors, even more shades of black will be possible.