Items tagged with DirectX
AMD's "Sweet Spot" GPU strategy over the last few years has been fairly predictable. Instead of producing the biggest, most powerful GPU possible--yields be damned--the company sets out to produce a relatively high-end GPU, using a cutting edge fabrication process, that hits a proverbial sweet spot between cost and performance. Then derivatives, and even multiples, of that GPU are used to flesh out a top-to-bottom line-up of graphics cards, that hit a broad range of price points. It began with the RV670, which powered the single-GPU based Radeon HD 3870 and dual-GPU Radeon HD 3870 X2--hence the X2. Then came the RV770, which powered the Radeon HD 4870 and eventually the Radeon HD 4870 X2. The...
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NVIDIA is launching a new mainstream graphics card today, aimed squarely at consumers in the market for a relatively low-cost upgrade from an integrated graphics solution or older entry-level GPU. The new GeForce GT 240, features a GPU outfitted with 96 processor cores, 8 ROP units, and 32 texture filtering units. In addition, the GT 240 GPU is manufactured using a 40nm process, it features a GDDR5 memory controller (that's also compatible with GDDR3), and unlike NVIDIA's current high-end GPUs, the GT 240 is DirectX 10.1 compatible.Although its specifications aren't terribly high-end in light of NVIDIA's more powerful GeForces, the GT 240 is actually more advanced than its counterparts in a number...
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NVIDIA is launching a new mainstream graphics card today, aimed squarely at consumers in the market for a relatively low-cost upgrade from an integrated graphics solution or older entry-level GPU. The new GeForce GT 240, features a GPU outfitted with 96 processor cores, 8 ROP units, and 32 texture filtering units. In addition, the GT 240 GPU is manufactured using a 40nm process, it features a GDDR5 memory controller (that's also compatible with GDDR3), and unlike NVIDIA's current high-end GPUs, the GT 240 is DirectX 10.1 compatible.Although its specifications aren't terribly high-end in light of NVIDIA's more powerful GeForces, the GT 240 is actually more advanced than its counterparts...
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Exactly one week ago today, AMD unleashed the ultra powerful, DirectX 11-ready ATI Radeon HD 5870 upon the PC gaming world and staked a claim as the undisputed 3D performance leader. Having evaluated the features, performance, and image quality of AMD's latest and greatest flagship we were left thoroughly impressed, not only with the new Radeon's killer performance, but its extensive feature set, excellent image quality, power consumption, and competitive price.In our coverage of the official launch of the Radeon HD 5870, we also revealed AMD's plan to release a more affordable, pared-down version of the card, with a shorter PCB, lower core and memory frequencies, also sans a few stream processors...
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Exactly one week ago today, AMD unleashed the ultra powerful, DirectX 11-ready ATI Radeon HD 5870 upon the PC gaming world and staked a claim as the undisputed 3D performance leader, well, per GPU anyway. Having evaluated the features, performance, and image quality of AMD's latest and greatest flagship we were left thoroughly impressed, not only with the new Radeon's killer performance, but its extensive feature set, excellent image quality, power consumption, and competitive price. In our coverage of the official launch of the Radeon HD 5870, we also revealed AMD's plan to release a more affordable, pared-down version of the card, with a shorter PCB, lower core and memory frequencies, and sans...
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Over the past couple of weeks, we've been completely preoccupied trying to come up with a catchy and informative introduction for this article. We thought maybe it would be fun to play off of AMD's tree-laden GPU codenames to come up with an interesting segue into the Radeon HD 5800 series' power efficiency. But we came up short. Then we thought we could use an image of the Radeon HD 5870's cooler and draw a parallel to the awesomeness that was the original Bat Mobile, but a couple of folks from AMD snagged that idea. Even being briefed on the technology we're about to show you on the very same aircraft carried that scooped up the Apollo 11 astronauts didn't cure the writer's block. Then it hit...
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Over the past couple of weeks, we've been completely preoccupied trying to come up with a catchy and informative introduction for this article. We thought maybe it would be fun to play off of AMD's tree-laden GPU codenames to come up with an interesting segue into the Radeon HD 5800 series' power efficiency. But we came up short. Then we thought we could use an image of the Radeon HD 5870's cooler and draw a parallel to the awesomeness that was the original Bat Mobile, but a couple of folks from AMD snagged that idea. Even being briefed on the technology we're about to show you on the very same aircraft carrier that scooped up the Apollo 11 astronauts didn't cure the writer's block.Then it hit...
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NVIDIA has just announced a bevy of new mobile GPUs in the GeForce 200M series. Unlike some previous mobile products, however, the GPUs in this release are based on all new silicon, and not a re-branded version of the G92 that has served NVIDIA so well over the years.The new products in the GeForce 200M Series include the GeForce GTS 260M, GeForce GTS 250M, GeForce GT 240M, GeForce GT 230M, and GeForce G210M. Although we have not tested any of them yet to confirm, NVIDIA states the chips are engineered to deliver twice the graphics performance with half the power budget in their respective market segments. As you'd probably expect the new GeForce 200M Series GPUs being announced today are Windows...
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AMD Demonstrates World’s First Microsoft DirectX 11 Graphics Processor AMD previews significant improvements to the digital media and gaming experience, commits to bring DirectX 11 to market first COMPUTEX 2009, Taipei — June 3, 2009 — At a press conference in Taipei, Taiwan today, AMD (NYSE: AMD) publicly demonstrated the world’s first Microsoft DirectX 11 graphics processor. The series of demonstrations shed new light on the significantly improved computing experience set to debut at the end of 2009.1 The fusion of AMD’s new ground-breaking graphics processors with the forthcoming DirectX 11 programming interface is set to forever change both applications and PC gaming for the better. To illustrate,...
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Though the lines between CPUs and GPUs have been projected to intersect in the not so distant future, today things are still relatively distinct, in terms of what types of workloads can be processed where. In the future, though AMD's Fusion technology and Intel's Larabee processor may well offer the best of both worlds in hardware, Microsoft appears to be planning to take advantage of current, traditional architectures and enable DirectX 10 processing on the CPU in software. With the help of a software rasterizer called "WARP" (Windows Advanced Rasterization Platform) in Windows 7, Microsoft plans to fully support DX10 and 10.1 features in software with up to 8X...
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AMD announced plans today to provide full support for Microsoft DirectX 11 and OpenCL to enable increased C/C++ cross platform programming efficiency, see the full press release below. Over the next 18-months, AMD plans to make a series of extensive upgrades to its Stream Software Development Kit, which are specifically designed to reduce the time and effort needed to produce GPU accelerated applications that can run on multiple platforms. AMD Drives Adoption of Industry Standards in GPGPU Software Development - Plans full support of Microsoft DirectX 11 and OpenCL to enable increased C/C++ cross-platform programming efficiency - Sunnyvale, Calif. — August 6, 2008 — AMD (NYSE: AMD) today...
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Microsoft has disclosed some details regarding the next iteration of its gaming and graphics API, DirectX 11. Shacknews has the full scoop on what Microsoft has disclosed up to this point, which isn't much, but there is still plenty to ponder. For example, the initial DirectX features and specifications disclosed at this point include... Full support (including all DX11 hardware features) on Windows Vista as well as future versions of Windows Compatibility with DirectX 10 and 10.1 hardware, as well as support for new DirectX 11 hardware New compute shader technology that lays the groundwork for the GPU to be used for more than just 3D graphics, so that developers can take advantage of the...
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Microsoft has released a new DirectX redistributable package into the wild for virtually all versions of Windows, including Vista. This is a DX9.0c / DX10 update that's not going to show up on the Windows Update website, but it is an official release."This download provides the DirectX end-user multi-languaged redistributable that developers can include with their product. The DirectX redist installation includes all the latest and previous released DirectX runtime. This includes the bi-monthly D3DX, XInput, and Managed DirectX components." This is not going to make your Vista framerates jump all that much, if at all, but with the relative immaturity of Vista and graphics drivers...
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AMD Introduces ATI Mobility Radeon(tm) HD 3000 Series - First Microsoft DirectX® 10.1 Graphics Processors for Notebook PCsFeature-rich graphics solutions to power next-generation AMD notebook platform built for a high-definition, mobile worldLAS VEGAS (2008 International CES) - Jan. 7, 2008 - AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced the ATI Mobility Radeon(tm) HD 3000 series, a new family of discrete graphics for high-definition gaming and video in notebook PCs. The initial offerings consist of ATI Mobility Radeon(tm) HD 3400 series and ATI Mobility Radeon(tm) HD 3600 series. ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3000 series allows notebook users to experience the full power of HD through graphics processing designed...
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DirectX 10 (DX10) has been one of the hottest topics for discussion and news coverage since the first DX10 compliant hardware appeared in the second half of last year. Touted as the biggest milestone in games development since programmable shaders were introduced with DirectX 8, nearly seven years ago, DX10 has generated a lot of buzz. Unlike the older versions of DirectX which were each built on top of the previous version, DirectX 10 is a completely new beast. With Windows Vista, Microsoft fundamentally changed the way drivers are designed, and they also completely redesigned DirectX from the ground up. Before DirectX 10, each new version of DirectX was an incremental improvement over the previous...
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Microsoft has released a new DirectX redistributable package into the wild for virtually all versions of Windows, including 64-bit versions of Vista and XP. This is a DirectX9 and 10 end-user runtime update that's not going to show up on the Windows Update website. It is an official release, however. "This download provides the DirectX end-user multi-languaged redistributable that developers can include with their product. The DirectX redist installation includes all the latest and previous released DirectX runtime. This includes the bi-monthly D3DX, XInput, and Managed DirectX components." This is not going to make your Vista framerates jump...
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Microsoft has released a new DirectX redistributable package into the wild for virtually all versions of Windows, including Vista. This is a DX9.0c update that's not going to show up on the Windows Update website, but it is an official release. "This download provides the DirectX end-user multi-languaged redistributable that developers can include with their product. The DirectX redist installation includes all the latest and previous released DirectX runtime. This includes the bi-monthly D3DX, XInput, and Managed DirectX components." This is not going to make your Vista framerates jump all that much, if at all, but with the relative immaturity of Vista and graphics drivers for Vista,...
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Who says DirectX 10 isn't for Windows XP? Apparently not Cody Brocious of San Diego, who has been hard at work on getting DX 10 to run on XP, Linux, and OS X. Mr. Brocious blogged the following just recently: "As a fitting start to this blog, I'm proud to release a preview of our DirectX 10 compatibility libraries. These libraries allow the use of DirectX 10 games on platforms other than Microsoft Vista, and increase hardware compatibility even on Vista, by compiling Geometry Shaders down to native machine code for execution where hardware isn't capable of running it. No longer will you have to upgrade your OS and video card(s) to play the latest games. The current preview allows you to run...
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Ever wonder what sort of real, tangible visual effects DX10 will bring to your gaming experience? Sure there have been a few screen shots and demos here and there that have popped up around the net but none as impressive perhaps as those seen here... DX9 Left, DX10 Right, MS Flight Simulator X "One of the main (only?) improvements in Vista for gamers would be the inclusion of DirectX 10. And to make gamers upgrade, they made DirectX 10 a Vista exclusive. Is it worth it? See for yourself." Jones on it, at Gizmodo....
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NVIDIA, first to bring DX 10 capable cards to the market, seem to also be prepping a DX 10 card for the masses. Enter the GeForce 8600 series, an upcoming entry level card from NVIDIA in the GeForce 8 series lineup. If you want to join the ranks of the cool kids with one of those nifty DirectX 10 cards for promoting Vista shenanigans, but don't want to sell any vital internal organs to purchase a GeForce 8800 GTX or one of those upcoming ATI R600 cards, then you might be happy to hear that the price of entry is about to get a whole lot cheaper. Details of NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce 8600 series have been revealed, with the 8600 GT going for roughly $150 and the 8600 Ultra demanding...
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There is an interesting interview posted at BootDaily (formerly GDHardware) in regard to DirectX 10 and what it means to the future of gaming on the PC. Lots of good information and insight into what's in store for us all once Windows Vista ships. "We recently had the chance to sit down with Microsoft DirectX 10 guru, Chris Donahue, and ask him some hard-hitting questions about his company's pending release of DirectX 10 and what it means to gamers and PC users at large." I especially liked how Chris side-stepped the question about which GPU manufacturer Microsoft prefers....
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As we get closer and closer to the end of the year(I can't believe we've already passed the halfway mark!), we get closer to the much anticipated OS from Microsoft, Windows Vista. While the prospect of a new OS to tinker around with is good, there is an equal amount of interest in the next version of DirectX and the new technology that comes with it, such unified shaders. In their latest article, the folks over at EB cover ATI's take on the new tech. "Although Vista isn't going to be available in retail until at least January 2007 (with rumours mounting of further delays), the major graphics cards vendors such as ATI, NVIDIA and...
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