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The Future According To nVidia
NerdMaster writes "Last week nVidia held their Spring 2008 Editor's day, where they presented their forthcoming series of graphics processing units. While the folks at Hardware Secrets couldn't tell the details of the new chips, they posted some ideas of what nVidia is seeing as the future of computing. Basically more GPGPU usage, with the system CPU losing its importance, and the co-existence of ray-tracing and rasterization on future video cards and games. In other words, the 'can of whoop-ass' nVidia has promised to open on Intel."
The future according to Sun or IBM.. faster CPUs. The future according to Nvidia... more GPUs .. the future according to Seagate.. exabytes and petabyes, the future according to Minute Maid.. , the future according to Blue Bonnet .. lower cholesterol, the future according to ATT "more bars in more places", the future according to ...
Another paid for article. Yawn.
The leading manufacturer of GPUs wants GPUs to become ever more important.
Extreme Programming - Redundant Array of Inexpensive Developers
I fail to see how this is redundant. I too choose video cards based on how well they are supported under Linux. Or rather, I choose the ones with the less shitty support. Any Linux users who's ever tried to use any OpenGL app more complex than glxgears knows the pain, so I reckon Linux (or any OS other than Windows I suppose) support isn't a trivial, or a fanboy issue.
So no, the post isn't redundant, because this issue isn't yet solved (not to mention, how can a first post be redundant?).
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
nVidia will probably continue their controversial blob model (i.e. you get a binary object plus the source to a kernel module that, with the help of said object, works as a driver). Purists rage against it because it's against freedom and-so-on, pragmatists tend to like the full 3D acceleration that comes with it.
Intel is going the Open Source road, trying to be as open as possible. Unfortunately, from a performance PoV their hardware sucks. Their products are intended as consumer-level, chipset integrated solutions and, considering that, work nicely. Don't try any 3D games, though.
ATi opened a lot of specs, so community-developed and completely open drivers are on the horizon. Unfortunately the horizon is quite far away and the movement towards it is similar to a kid on a tricycle. The situation is prone to improve though. Performance-wise, ATi may be a good choice if you'd like to play the occasional game, but they don't really compare to nVidia (which is unlikely to change soon).
In the end, I'm going to stick to nVidia in the near future, using intel wherever low energy consumption is strongly desired (i.e. notebooks and similar). ATi just ain't my cup of tea, I wouldn't be putting a red card in a Windows box either, but my preference of nVintel is just such -- a preference. Go with whatever suits you best.
Considering how many problems I have always seen, I would say that even on Windows it is anything but trivial.
Video drivers suck. On whatever platform you choose.
morcego
Possibly Intel, possibly ATI.
But nVidia is the last to publish specs, or any sort of source code. ATI and Intel already do one of the two for pretty much all of their cards.
So, in the long run, nVidia loses. It's possible they'll change in the future, but when you can actually convert a geForce to a Quadro with a soft mod, I very much doubt it'll be anytime soon.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I doubt very much that it's either of these. Remember, we only need specs for an interface, it doesn't have to be schematics for the whole card.
No, the real reason very likely has to do with the geForce/Quadro scam. Specifically, the fact that you can take a geForce (typically, what, $200?) and soft-mod it into a Quadro (at least $500, and most are $1k and up).
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!