AMD Plans 1,000-GPU Supercomputer For Games, Cloud

arcticstoat writes "AMD is planning to use over 1,000 Radeon HD 4870 GPUs to create a supercomputer capable of processing one petaflop, which the company says will make 'cloud' computing a reality. When it's built later this year, the Fusion Render Cloud will be available as an online powerhorse for a variety of people, from gamers to 3D animators. The company claims that it could 'deliver video games, PC applications and other graphically-intensive applications through the Internet "cloud" to virtually any type of mobile device with a web browser.' The idea is that the Fusion Render Cloud will do all the hard work, so all you need is a machine capable of playing back the results, saving battery life and the need for ever greater processing power. AMD also says that the supercomputer will 'enable remote real-time rendering of film and visual effects graphics on an unprecedented scale.' Meanwhile, game developers would be able to use the supercomputer to quickly develop games, and also 'serve up virtual world games with unlimited photo-realistic detail.' The supercomputer will be powered by OTOY software, which allows you to render 3D visuals in your browser via streaming, compressed online data."

Comments

Uhm, bandwidth?

[Taibhsear]

Even if the "work" is offloaded to the cloud won't you still need an assload of bandwidth on said devices in order to actually amount to anything? It's not like you're going to get pci-express bandwidth capabilities over dsl or cable internet connection.

Re:Uhm, bandwidth?

[megaditto]

We can already stream DVD-quality movies encoded at 1 mbps or so, well within the current consumer "broadband" offerings. I'd assume that would be in the target range.

But even if you wanted for some reason to go uncompressed, then 8-bit 800x600 at 25 fps would still be less than 100 mbps, not totally unreasonable.

I would imagine the latency would be a much bigger problem than bandwidth. If you ever used VNC you probably know what I mean.

Good luck

[4D6963]

"VNCing" games through the Internet and possibly a wireless network, and getting a decent enough latency and enough throughoutput to get a good image quality/FPS? Good luck with that, not saying it won't work, but if it does work satisfyingly and reliably it'll be an impressive feat.

Well I know StreamMyGame does it, but it's meant to be used locally, not over the internet + WiFi, right?

Latency?

[hax0r_this]

Try downloading a picture at your phone's native resolution (a screenshot of a 3d game taken on your phone would be ideal). It will take at least that long for a "game" to respond to your input on this system.

And I doubt that streaming a 3d rendering will really save much battery either considering all the network activity.

One Problem

[Akir]

They're going to have to write a driver that works before they get that to work.

I look forward to

[sleeponthemic]

Playing Duke Nukem Forever @ 1900x1200 through the Fusion Render Cloud, occasionally reloading the latest results of the (fully operational)Super Hadron Collider on my Nintendo VR Goggles powered by a free energy device producing negative infinity carbon emissions.

Bullshit Stack Overflow

[elysiuan]

"serve up virtual world games with unlimited photo-realistic detail."

Considering that CGI effects in movie houses have only started approaching effects indistinguishable from reality within the last five or so years this spikes my bullshit meter pretty high.

Factor in Weta/IL&M and the rest are using huge render farms for an extremely non-realtime render process and my meter explodes.

Even if I take the claim at face value and postulate that it is possible to do this then I am forced to wonder about how many concurrent, real-time, 100% realistic scenes it can process at once.

Sounds like the marketing department wet their pants a bit early on this one.