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The Future According To nVidia

Posted by kdawson on from the when-all-you've-got-is-a-hammer dept.

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."

28 of 132 comments (clear)

  1. Who will have the better Linux driver support? by pembo13 · · Score: 5, Informative

    That's my main influence when I purchase video cards.

    --
    "Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
    1. Re:Who will have the better Linux driver support? by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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
    2. Re:Who will have the better Linux driver support? by darthflo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    3. Re:Who will have the better Linux driver support? by Hal_Porter · · Score: 5, Funny

      That's my main influence when I purchase video cards. Hi!

      I'm the CEO of NVidia and I spend all day reading slashdot. Despite that I hadn't noticed that Linux was popular until I read your post.

      I'll tell the driver developers to start fixing the drivers now.

      Thanks for the heads up

      Jen-Hsun Huang
      CEO, NVidia Inc
      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    4. Re:Who will have the better Linux driver support? by morcego · · Score: 2, Insightful

      so I reckon Linux (or any OS other than Windows I suppose) support isn't a trivial


      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
    5. Re:Who will have the better Linux driver support? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Purists rage against it because it's against freedom and-so-on, pragmatists tend to like the full 3D acceleration that comes with it. Bullshit.
      Closed drivers suck for pragmatic reasons.
      Just because YOU haven't paid the price yet doesn't mean it isn't true.

      I bought two top-end nvidia cards (spent $350+ each on them) only to find out that because my monitors don't send EDID information their binary-blob drivers wouldn't work. The problem was that my monitors required dual-link DVI and even though these top-of-the-line cards had dual-link transceivers built into the chip (i.e. every single card of that generation had dual-link transceivers, it wasn't unique to one vendor's model) nvidia's brain-dead binary-blob drivers would assume that their own transceivers where single-link if they failed to get EDID information and nothing you could do in the config files would convince them otherwise. it even printed it out in the driver syslog messages "initializing single-link dvi transmitter..."

      I reported the bug to nvidia, I even fucking proved it out by buying an EDID generator (Gefen dvi detective) to force an EDID down the wire to the nvidia cards.
      But Nvidia's support for linux is informal. They don't officially support linux. You heard me, its "best level of effort" where the engineers assigned to the work are shit-for-brains who just ignore problems that they can't grasp rather than an official support program with bug-reports and escalation.

      So, I ended up spending an extra $150 (plus DAYS of my time figuring out the problem) all of which could have been reduced to about 1 day's worth of effort if the source was available for me to fix myself.

      Oddly enough, RMS had a similar problem once upon a time - a closed source printer driver was buggy as hell, and the printer manufacturer refused to either fix the bugs or send him the source so he could fix it himself. Amazing how little things have changed since then, despite all the hype about "Open Source."

      At least ATI has committed to fully Free drivers for their next gen cards, due in a month or so. (The current cards aren't fully Free because the DRM hardware is entangled with the video decode/playback acceleration hardware so they won't release a driver that supports accelerated video playback for fear it will reveal the cracks in their DRM. The next gen cards seperate the DRM hardware from everything else so we can just ignore it.)
    6. Re:Who will have the better Linux driver support? by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 4, Informative

      Given that nVidia already makes Linux drivers, it seems to me that the only way they could spend less money on them short of not supporting Linux at all would be to open specs and source, thus getting the Linux community to write their drivers for them.

      And those drivers would actually be better. Better Linux support for less money.

      So what's the holdup?

      --
      Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
    7. Re:Who will have the better Linux driver support? by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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!
    8. Re:Who will have the better Linux driver support? by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 2, Informative

      Down, fanboy.

      The last time I looked at the graphics scene, they were actually neck and neck. There were reviews for new cards from each, and depending on the publisher, they might go one way or another.

      At no point do I remember ATI no longer being relevant.

      So, do you have anything to back that statement up, or are you just going to keep parroting the nVidia party line?

      --
      Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
  2. Yawn by gd23ka · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Yawn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      The future according to Goatse.. P1st fR0st!
      The future according to anonymous coward.. more trolling, offtopic, flamebait-ness, with the odd insightful or funny.
      The future according to Ballmer.. inflated Vista sales (it's his job, damnit!).
      The future according to Microsoft shill 59329.. "I hate Microsoft as much as the next guy, but Vista really is t3h w1n! Go and buy it now!"
      The future according to Stallman.. Hurd.

      BTW The promo video for HURD is going to feature Stallman as a Gangsta rapper, and features the phrase: "HURD up to ma Niggaz."

    2. Re:Yawn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      The future according to the past...the present.

    3. Re:Yawn by darthflo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Three things: - None of the futures you mentioned contradicts any of the others. Quite obviously Blue Bonnet won't predict the future of the storage market and Minute Maid won't be the first companyto know about new processes in CPU manufacturing.
      - What's the future according to Minute Maid anyways? Really, I'm intrigued!
      - Did you notice the interesting parallel between the future according to ATT and what the american government seems to be steering to? More bars in more places (and as many people behind them as possible(?))? What a strange coincidence...

    4. Re:Yawn by Scoth · · Score: 2, Informative

      Business apps might be the drivers of the most sales, but I tend to think games are the drivers of "progress". There are very few business apps that need more than NT4 on a decent sized screen with a fast enough processor to run Office. I think even Office 2007's minimum requirements say something about a 500mhz processor. Heck, a large number of companies could probably get away with Windows 3.1, Word 1.1A, Eudora Light for e-mail, and maybe some sort of spreadsheet/accounting software. You really don't need a dual core with 2GB of RAM and Vista Ultimate to send e-mail, write letters, track expenses, and surf the web a bit. As for nVidia, I'm still split on whether the graphics card is going to end up being dominant, or we're going to end up with something like 16 or 32 general purpose cores with a dynamically allocated number dedicated to graphics. I tend to think that as things are now, highly specialized dedicated graphics cards aren't going anywhere, but I've been surprised before.

    5. Re:Yawn by ceoyoyo · · Score: 4, Funny

      Now what's wrong with more bars with more bartenders behind them so you get your drinks faster? Really, all this criticism of the American government when they're really trying to do something quite noble. :P

  3. Price / Perfomance works for me by Rog7 · · Score: 4, Informative

    I'm all for it.

    The more competition the better.

    Anyone that worries too much about the cost a good GPU adds to the price of a PC, doesn't remember much what it was like when Intel was the only serious player in the CPU market.

    This kind of future, to me, spells higher bang for the buck.

  4. Surprise, Surprise... by allcar · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The leading manufacturer of GPUs wants GPUs to become ever more important.

    1. Re:Surprise, Surprise... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I am a bit skeptical. If AMD's experimentation with combining the CPU and GPU bears fruit it might actually mean the end for the traditional GPU's. nVidia doesn't have a CPU that can compete with AMD and Intel so I think nVidia is the one in trouble here. But I suppose nVidia has to keep up appearances to keep the stocks from plummeting.

    2. Re:Surprise, Surprise... by pdusen · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Right. The special hardware being separate graphics-optimized cores, in this case.

  5. Competing by Yetihehe · · Score: 3, Insightful
    FTFA:

    basically more GPGPU usage (i.e. the use of the graphics chip to process regular programs) and the co-existence of "competing" technologies like ray tracing and rasterization
    Hmm, they aren't really competing technologies. Raytracing CAN be an extension of rasterization, some RT algorithms even use some form of rasterization for visibility testing... But if nVidia don't embrace RT, they risk going to second position (no, not extinct, as you can do RT on nvidia cards today, but it would be better with some native api and better hardware support).
    --
    Extreme Programming - Redundant Array of Inexpensive Developers
  6. Will they become platform supplier? by sznupi · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I was wondering about this...now that nVidia wants CPU to loose its importance _and_ they started to cooparate with Via on chipsets for Via CPUs (which perhaps aren't the fastest...but I've hard the latest Isaiah core is quite capable), will we see some kind of merge?

    --
    One that hath name thou can not otter
  7. Well API isn't their department by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 3, Interesting

    nVidia doesn't do the APIs for their cards. They have no properitary API, their native APIs are DirectX and OpenGL. In fact, the advances in those APIs, more specifically DirectX, often determines the features they work on. The graphics card companies have a dialogue with MS on these matters.

    This could be an area that OpenGL takes the lead in, as DirectX is still rasterization based for now. However it seems that while DirectX leads the hardware (the new DX software comes out usually about the time the hardware companies have hardware to run it) OpenGL trails it rather badly. 3.0 was supposed to be out by now, but they are dragging their feet badly and have no date when it'll be final.

    I imagine that if MS wants raytracing in DirectX, nVidia will support it. For the most part, if MS makes it part of the DirectX spec, hardware companies work to support that in hardware since DirectX is the major force in games. Until then I doubt they'll go out of their way. No reason to add a bunch of hardware to do something if the major APIs don't support it. Very few developers are going to implement something that requires special coding to do, especially if it works on only one brand of card.

    I remember back when Matrox added bump mapping to their cards. There was very few (like two) titles that used it because it wasn't a standard thing. It didn't start getting used until later, when all cards supported it as a consequence of having shaders that could do it and it was part of the APIs.

    1. Re:Well API isn't their department by ardor · · Score: 4, Informative

      nVidia doesn't do the APIs for their cards. Wrong.
      GPGPU absolutely demands specialized APIs - forget D3D and OGL for it. These two don't even guarantee any floating point precision, which is no big deal for games, but deadly for GPGPU tasks.
      --
      This sig does not contain any SCO code.
  8. Re:Really? by NMerriam · · Score: 3, Informative

    Yep, I'm sure the Intel Devs have all taken a sabbatical.


    The ones that work on GPUs? I'm not sure they ever even showed up for their first day of work.
    --
    Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
  9. Zen koan. by Hankapobe · · Score: 2, Funny

    The future according to the past...the present.

    Ahhhh. You are a Zen Master. Please, teach us more!

  10. nVidia's split personality by argent · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Nvidia's chief scientist, David Kirk, is really down on raytracing and particularly on dedicated raytracing hardware.

    http://scarydevil.com/~peter/io/raytracing-vs-rasterization.html

    However... Dr Philipp Slusallek, who demonstrated how even a really slow FPGA implementation of raytracing hardware could kick general purpose processors (whether CPU or GPGPU) butts in 2005, has been working as a "Visiting Professor" at nVidia since October 2007.

    They're still playing their cards close to their chest.

    1. Re:nVidia's split personality by flabbergast · · Score: 2, Informative

      And the ray tracing group at Utah, Pete Shirley and Steve Parker, now both work for nVidia as well.

  11. Not nVidia. by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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!