Newsgroup: it.comp.hardware.video-3d
Titolo: news nv40

http://mbnet.fi/elixir/NV40/

in diretto collegamento con alcuni fortunati al nvidia lan party gustatevi
le newssssss
BlackAngel

 
http://mbnet.fi/elixir/NV40/
Da lookare molte JPG per la qualità dell'immagine... ma soprattutto 
tutte le GIF che contengono benchmark.
La differenza "sembra" minima a livello di performance... driver poco 
maturi? Qualità "superiore" che porta a livelli di performance ridotti?
Uhm... un altro flop? :o(
-- 
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:: Registered Linux User #302069  ::  Il Paradiso dei VideoGames  ::
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http://www.edengames.net
   ::

 Uhm... un altro flop? :o(
credimi mi spiacerebbe se così fosse.. e le premesse non sono buone
purtroppo...
l'hype iniziale pare ingiustificato...

 BlackAngel
la stanno provando con 21 giochi...
se resisto al sonno posto i risultati...
non garantisco, son cotto...

 non garantisco, son cotto...
anche i fanboys nvidiani son delusi...
rosicano...
forse ora fanno il filmato della sirena...

 
http://mbnet.fi/elixir/NV40/
ecco bello compatto con ttte le pic ed i bench
 
http://bocor.workiron.com/nv40.rar

 wrote in message
news:gi%ec.69824$rM4.2...@news4.tin.it...
i ragazzi di hardocp stanno scrivendo ora la recensione....
dovreste trovare la credo la prima rece domattina..

http://www.darkcrow.co.kr/image/news/0404/nv40x_06.jpg

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Companies in Silicon Valley often say their
technology is sexy. Jen-Hsun Huang, chief executive of Nvidia Corp. here, is
showing off something that really is.
It is a computer-generated mermaid named Nalu, with a cloud of golden
tresses that realistically seem to reflect dappled light and flow with the
water. Nalu has rosy, unusually lifelike skin, and she is displaying
generous quantities of it with a flirtatious wiggle.
More than 2,000 miles away, in a suburb of Toronto, executives at rival ATI
Technologies Inc. are preparing a coming-out party for Ruby, another
computerized creation who also has a skin texture unusually detailed for a
videogame character, along with a shock of red hair and pneumatic chest.
The two characters are unlikely soldiers in a fast-moving technology battle
helping to shape the evolution of digital entertainment. Nvidia and ATI, the
two leading providers of chips that control graphics on personal computers
and other gadgets, developed the animated figures to demonstrate the power
of the improved technology each company is unveiling this month. The realism
of animation increases as images use a greater number of geometric building
blocks, called polygons, to create them. Nalu is composed of 300,000
polygons; Ruby has 80,000 -- both far in excess of what most video images
today have.
This is why voluptuous Nalu and Ruby are more than just a form of eye candy:
Human skin and hair have been among the hardest textures to simulate
convincingly, so their technology presents a breakthrough.
Nvidia, which had a prior computerized model dubbed Dawn, says its creations
are realistic enough to draw offers to appear in TV commercials. "We are
getting calls from Hollywood agencies," says Mark Daly, a vice president in
charge of digital content. "It's pretty weird."
Nevertheless, both companies still are a long way from the industry's
ultimate goal -- artificial worlds that are indistinguishable from reality.
But in the hands of skilled programmers, the chips will help bring a new
level of realism and emotional force in games by creating characters that
are more convincing when they move, talk, laugh and cry. Over time, such
chips are likely to inspire richer forms of entertainment, where story lines
and character development are as important as action, that will appeal to
broader audiences.
"The videogame market is now mainly targeted at young men," Mr. Huang says.
Soon, he adds, "you could imagine interactive soap operas."
Nvidia and ATI, which both have sales of about $2 billion and market
capitalizations topping $4 billion, are longtime rivals in the
graphics-chips business. Although ATI was a graphics pioneer, Nvidia
outstripped it several years ago to dominate the sector. Lately ATI has been
regaining market share. Microsoft Corp. picked ATI to supply chips for its
next videogame system, succeeding Nvidia, which makes chips for the current
Xbox system.
Dueling demos: Nvidia's Nalu and ATI's Ruby, right, illustrate the lifelike
imagery made possible by the new graphics chips.
Still, Nvidia still accounted for 58% of the 23 million PC graphics chips
sold for desktop PCs in the fourth quarter of 2003, says industry watcher
Mercury Research, compared with 38% for ATI.
Mr. Huang vows to take the lead with the new chip the company is introducing
today at a company-sponsored event expected to draw hundreds of gamers to
San Francisco. ATI is also confident about Ruby's prospects in the graphics
beauty pageant. "I don't think there is any doubt that we will win this
round," says Rick Bergman, an ATI senior vice president in charge of its
desktop products.
The competition between the two graphics-chips makers has caused the power
of graphics chips to double every year. By comparison, Intel Corp's
microprocessors typically double in performance every 18 months or so.
Nvidia's new GeForce 6 chips, for example, have a whopping 222 million
transistors -- nearly twice the number in Intel's most-powerful Pentium 4
microprocessor.
And while Intel's chips have circuitry for one electronic brain handling
calculations, graphics chips have multiple processors for specialized jobs
performed in parallel. Nvidia's latest chip has the equivalent of 32
specialized brains; ATI will disclose details of its new chip at its own
event this month.
Such chips, built into PCs or sold on accessory graphics cards, are the
source of most of the images on a PC screen. As such, they are increasingly
important to the design decisions of engineers, movie studios, advertising
agencies and Web developers, says Jon Peddie, an industry analyst in
Tiburon, Calif. The standard microprocessor, in many instances, acts as a
mere "coprocessor" to the graphics chips, he says.
When creating a game, designers define geometric models of objects and
characters and then determine how they will move. They later define visual
textures, such as simulated skin, cloth, wood or metal, and arrange
artificial light sources that determine colors and shadows. A computing step
called rendering creates the images that users see. The more powerful the
graphics chip, the greater the degree of detail and range of choices a
designer has at his disposal.
In animated movies, with a set number of scripted scenes, studios can throw
hundreds of computers into a final rendering process that creates
ultrarealistic images. Computer games typically have lacked the realism of
movies because they offer nearly infinite possibilities for action and have
to render scenes as users play them.
These latest Nvidia and ATI chips are narrowing the gap in image quality
between games and movies. A key reason is a set of programming conventions,
defined by Microsoft, that assigns a tiny piece of software to define the
light and shade on each of the thousands of picture elements, or pixels,
that make up a display screen.
As graphics chips become more powerful, the hardware movie studios and game
makers use eventually could become the same, allowing them to swap scenes
and characters. "It's going to become completely possible to have the
graphics engines used for gaming also used in film rendering," says John
Carmack, co-founder and technical director of id Software, which is
finishing a long-awaited game called Doom III that took four years to
produce.
Game makers already are moving toward film-quality images. Another
high-profile game sequel called Half-Life 2 is expected to produce unusually
realistic people, even with existing graphics. Valve, a closely held
software company in Kirkland, Wash., has developed a system that simulates
40 muscle movements in human speech -- one of the most difficult actions to
mimic. The movements will be used by protagonist Gordon Freeman, a virtual
character who already is a star from the first Half-Life game.
Graphic chips also have helped games become a spectator sport, attracting
onlookers who watch the action at tournaments on big display screens. "The
nicer the games look, and the more realistic they look, the more appealing
it is for people to watch," says Craig Levine, manager of Team 3D, a gaming
team whose sponsors include Nvidia.