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NVIDIA Shows Off "Optimus" Switchable Graphics For Notebooks
Vigile writes "Transformers jokes aside, NVIDIA's newest technology offering hopes to radically change the way notebook computers are built and how customers use them. The promise of both extended battery life and high performance mobile computing has seemed like a pipe dream, and even the most recent updates to 'switchable graphics' left much to be desired in terms of the user experience. Having both an integrated and discrete graphics chip in your notebook does little good if you never switch between the two. Optimus allows the system to seamlessly and instantly change between IGP and discrete NVIDIA GPUs based on the task being run, including games, GPU encoding or Flash video playback. Using new software and hardware technology, notebooks using Optimus can power on and pass control to the GPU in a matter of 300ms and power both the GPU and PCIe lanes completely off when not in use. This can be done without being forced to reboot or even close out your applications, making it a hands-free solution for the customer."
I knew if I just held off upgrading my Orchid Righteous 3d (Voodoo 1) card long eoungh discrete 3d cards would become relavent again. You guys with your fancy Banshee cards can suck it.
But that's my Prime form of entertainment!
"Optimus can power on and pass control to the GPU in a matter of 300ms"
That's good. I'm tired of finishing before my video player can render the first frame.
What all the cool kids are doing is dropping cases altogether. Thats right, nothing looks more badass than your motherboard laying on the desk with silicon chips sticking up in the air, with a giant fan overhead to help keep things cool and circulated. Your friends will be so jealous at all the blinking lights.
As for the Optimus, I think its a great idea. This change can come for desktops as much as it has for notebooks, if there is enough demand for such a product.
Think, you had to factor in the power supply when you bought that new Graphics card. So imagine how much power its actually eating up. Imagine if your desktop didn't have to use that much power when it didn't have to?
For years, the proprietary NVIDIA drivers for linux have been using a feature called powermizer that changes the performance of the GPU based on what the PC needed. E.g., under normal conditions, the GPU is underclocked but when you run an openGL window or run a game, the GPU bumps up into full speed. In principal it sounds like a great idea, but it's been really annoying to wait around for what seemed like at least a year for NVIDIA to get it to run well enough with a composite manager like compiz. For a long time, things like highlighting text in firefox and then dragging it led to flickering of the screen, or the new kde has composite things built right in which didn't work well. During that period we had to do things like fool the GPU into running full tilt all the time because NVIDIA didn't give us an option to switch powermizer off until AFTER they fixed the problems with it.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
Nope, not really. I have one of those and the video on the PCPer article shows the process on a MacBook Pro. You have to change a settings in the control panel and then logout of the system to change GPU modes.
Read the article at pcper.com - it talks about the current versions of switchable graphics and how the new Optimus differs.
It's not a cosmetic change.
I guess when they have dual CPU notebooks with full size keyboards and 21" displays, I might be more interested in them. But I'd also want solid state hard drives and hdmi cables to wire them to the TV...
But... But ... But ... Marketing told me you guys wanted postage stamp size touch sensitive screens, batteries that last two hours, and 3 second e-ink refresh rates. And its gotta use a cloud, whatever that is. And an app store, gotta have an app store. I guess you must be wrong.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger