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Nvidia Details 'Gameworks VR', Aims To Boost Virtual Reality Render Performance

Posted by timothy on from the here's-a-mud-in-your-eye dept.

An anonymous reader writes: In a guest article published to Road to VR, Nvidia graphics programmer Nathan Reed details Nvidia's 'Gameworks VR' initiative which the company says is designed to boost virtual reality render performance, including support for 'VR SLI' which will render one eye view per GPU for low latency stereoscopy. While many Gameworks VR features will be supported as far back as GeForce 6xx cards, the company's latest 'Maxwell' (9xx and Titan X) GPUs offer 'Multi-projection' which Reed says, 'enables us to very efficiently rasterize geometry into multiple viewports within a single render target at once... This better approximates the shading rate of the warped image that will eventually be displayed—in other words, it avoids rendering a ton of extra pixels that weren't going to make it to the display anyway, and gives you a substantial performance boost for no perceptible reduction in image quality.'

25 comments

  1. Aims High! Delivers Low! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As usual for the green machine.

  2. "As far back as 6xx" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    many Gameworks VR features will be supported as far back as GeForce 6xx cards

    Mercy me... I'm still packing a GeForce 7950 GT (runs Bioshock and Borderlands and Cryostasis reasonably well). I remember wondering what Nvidia were going to start calling their cards when they'd reached 9999.

    Are they going to go to two numbers in their next decade of cards?

    1. Re:"As far back as 6xx" by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      /Sarcasm "Naturally" they will move from the GTX 980 to GTY 100. Oh wait, you wanted something that makes sense ... can we fire the marketing droids who love creating confusion over recycling the same models numbers yet?

    2. Re:"As far back as 6xx" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Arbitrary lines. Why does this run on GTX600 series cards, but not the GTX500 and 400 series which use identical architecture?

    3. Re:"As far back as 6xx" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Same reason the 'multi-projection' is only available on Maxwell, because the driver says so. They would most likely say the older cards aren't fast enough to handle any of it. In that case, then a GTX430 shouldn't allow 1920x1080 and 16x AA for.. well, any game that isn't Oregon Trail.

    4. Re:"As far back as 6xx" by CronoCloud · · Score: 1

      Because they don't all use identical architecture?

      The GT600 series isn't all Fermi like the GT500 and 400 series, some of the 600's are Kepler. And those Kepler ones are the ones that are still available.

      The whole 600 series is a mish mash with multiple card variants sharing the same model number.

      For example there are 5 versions of the GT640, one of which is a Fermi, the rest are Kepler, 3 are DDR3, two are GDDR5, 3 are OEM only, two are retail. One of which, the rev2 variant is only slightly less powerful than a stock GTX650, runs cooler and uses less power.

  3. Re:Aims High! Delivers Low! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hey at least it delivers period, unlike the other guys.

  4. Hmmm .... by gstoddart · · Score: 1

    Somewhat off-topic ... I wonder how long before someone builds something which is VrV-50 -- 50% of all watchers of your VR will Vomit?

    Stereoscopic vision is something which has a huge potential to screw with people's heads.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    1. Re:Hmmm .... by Luckyo · · Score: 2

      It already does. Sickness inducing is one of the biggest problems with current VR implementations, and one of the main reasons its still in development and not being released to the public.

    2. Re:Hmmm .... by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Descent 2 on the VFX1 was VrV-100 in 1998!

      Well not quite. You could quit when you started to feel sick and not barf.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    3. Re:Hmmm .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I eventually got used to it. Never actually barfed, but after a few hours with D2 on the VFX1, I stopped feeling slightly nauseous when I'd play.

      Hopefully, Descent Underground on the Rift will be as awesome as the originals to play. I'm interested to see what 20 years of technological advancement brings to the series.

    4. Re:Hmmm .... by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      I never beat myself that hard.

      Janes ATF and Flight Unlimited II were my favorites back then. Escort Mothra to Monster Island! Shoot down Gamora.

      Loving Asseto Corsa on the DK2.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    5. Re:Hmmm .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I thought Nvidia was working on rendering light fields. Did they give up on that, or is this just a step toward being able to efficiently render a scene from thousands of view points simultaneously?

    6. Re:Hmmm .... by MrDoh! · · Score: 1

      Good point. I've dabbled with some Google Glass on hardware that was a bit below spec, and the most I've managed is 20 minutes and then I need to lay down on the floor in a dark room and wait for everything to stop spinning/warping slightly. Faster response helps, but it's still there, so the VrV % is an excellent thing to bring up. I used to play Doom a LOT and get Doom Dreams with that movement. Other games don't seem to mess things up for me, but always suffered badly from sea sickness if I can't see the horizon, wonder if there's some 'focus point' that VR can get we can always have as that point that's stable to help with this kind of nausea. Hmm.

      --
      Waiting for an amusing sig.
  5. Re:Aims High! Delivers Low! by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

    Do the newest drivers fix the DK2 problems?

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  6. No thanks by Andrio · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't want their technology that will run like crap on any AMD, or NVIDIA card older than 2 years.

    --
    The Internet King? I wonder if he could provide faster nudity.
    1. Re:No thanks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't want their technology that will run like crap on any AMD, or NVIDIA card older than 2 years.

      Get a new card then?

    2. Re:No thanks by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      If a VooDoo rush was good enough for grandpa, it's good enough for me.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    3. Re:No thanks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm sure you'll be thinking that in 5 years.

    4. Re:No thanks by Fartypants · · Score: 1

      From the article:

      "Since VR SLI is a software (driver) feature, it works across a wide variety of NVIDIA GPUs, going all the way back to the GeForce GTX 600 series"

      GTX 600 series was released in 2012, so it will work with a card that came out 4 years ago, not 2! So there!

      But also agree with other commenter that you'll probably need a newer card to run VR...

    5. Re:No thanks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fuck AMD anyway. They suckin' yo dick or something?

    6. Re:No thanks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My Grandpa thinks a voodoo rush is something you do to the other team's quarterback.

  7. Response to AMD's LiquidVR? by Kartu · · Score: 1

    AMD's pioneering Virtual Reality technology is poised to bring better content, comfort, and compatibility to VR applications – from simulations, gaming, entertainment, education, social media, travel and medicine to real estate, ecommerce and more – for a whole new level of presence.

    http://www.amd.com/en-us/innov...

    1. Re:Response to AMD's LiquidVR? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      GameworksVR was initially announced as "VR Direct" last fall at the 970/980 launch. I wouldn't classify either product as a "response" as VR optimizations at the API/driver level are a necessity for solving a lot of the issues at hand. Neither company can afford to sit idly by here.