Find: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 Review: Ultra Expensive, Ultra Rare, Ultra Fast

Very fast low power, probably worth it for the enthusiast. 

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 Review: Ultra Expensive, Ultra Rare, Ultra Fast

AnandTech

In an unusual move, NVIDIA took the opportunity earlier this week to announce a new 600 series video card before they would be shipping it. Based on a pair of Kepler GK104 GPUs, the GeForce GTX 690 would be NVIDIA’s new flagship dual-GPU video card. And by all metrics it would be a doozy.

Packing a pair of high clocked, fully enabled GK104 GPUs, NVIDIA was targeting GTX 680 SLI performance in a single card, the kind dual-GPU card we haven’t seen in quite some time. GTX 690 would be a no compromise card – quieter and less power hungry than GTX 680 SLI, as fast as GTX 680 in single-GPU performance, and as fast as GTX 680 SLI in multi-GPU performance. And at $999 it would be the most expensive GeForce card yet.

After the announcement and based on the specs it was clear that GTX 690 had the potential, but could NVIDIA really pull this off? They could, and they did. Now let’s see how they did it.

Find: early detail -- NVIDIA Unveils GeForce GTX 690: Dual GK104 Flagship Launching May 3rd

Looks very good. 

NVIDIA Unveils GeForce GTX 690: Dual GK104 Flagship Launching May 3rd

AnandTech

As we mentioned back on Monday, NVIDIA was going to be making some kind of GeForce announcement this evening at the NVIDA Gaming Festival 2012 in Shanghai, China. NVIDIA’s CEO Jen-Hsun Huang has just finished his speech, announcing NVIDIA’s next ultra-premium video card, the GeForce GTX 690.
Launching later this week, the GeForce GTX 690 will be NVIDIA’s new dual-GPU flagship video card, complementing their existing single-GPU GeForce GTX 680. Equipped with a pair of fully enabled GK104 GPUs, NVIDIA is shooting for GTX 680 SLI performance on a single card, and with GTX 690 they just might get there. We won’t be publishing our review until Thursday, but in the meantime let’s take a look at what we know so far about the GTX 690.

Find: SketchUp -- no longer part of google

A new home for SketchUp

Google SketchUp

In its time at Google, SketchUp has become one of the most popular 3D modeling tools in the world. With over 30 million SketchUp activations in just the last year, we’re awfully proud of our accomplishments. But there’s still so much we want to do, and we think we’ve found a way forward that will benefit everyone—our product, our team and especially our millions of users.

That’s why I’m sharing today that the SketchUp team and technology will be leaving Google to join Trimble. We’ll be better able to focus on our core communities: modelers who have been with us from the beginning, as well as future SketchUppers who have yet to discover our products. Designers, builders and makers of things have always been the heart and soul of SketchUp. With Trimble’s commitment to invest in our growth, we’ll be able to innovate and develop new features better than ever before.

#more 

For those of you in the architecture, engineering and construction industries, the knowledge and experience Trimble will add to the SketchUp effort are obvious. Together with our new colleagues at Trimble, we plan to continue making our tools for the building professions as innovative, intuitive and (dare I say) fun to use as we always have.

If you’re one of the many, many people who use SketchUp for something else—from education to woodworking, geo-modeling to movie-making—rest assured that there will be a SketchUp for you, too. Our mission has always been to make 3D modeling tools that anyone can use. The free version of SketchUp is an important part of our world as well, and that isn’t changing in the least.

Thanks to Google, more people than we ever imagined possible have been introduced to SketchUp. Thanks to Trimble, we’ll be able to continue to make SketchUp into the tool that we—and you—have always hoped it would become. With a strong wind at our backs and plenty of sunshine ahead, this voyage just keeps getting more exciting.


Posted by John Bacus, Product Manager, SketchUp

Find: mobile gpus better than Xbox 360 by 2014

NVIDIA Plots Mobile SoC GPU Performance, Surpassing Xbox 360 by 2014

AnandTech

Qualcomm was the first to tell us that it expects to offer console level GPU performance in the not too distant future, generally hinting that its Adreno 3xx GPUs would get us there. NVIDIA shared this slide (pictured above) with us today that gives its take on where PC, console and mobile GPU performance will land over the coming years. There's nothing too revolutionary here but it does provide an interesting visual for much of what the GPU vendors have been talking about for the past couple of years. 

The solid lines are estimated performance, while the dotted lines are trends. According to NVIDIA, somewhere in the 2013 - 2014 timeframe is when we'll get Xbox 360-class GPU performance out of mobile SoCs. The console line only has two points (Xbox 1 and Xbox 360), while the mobile line starts with the original iPhone, moves up to Tegra 2 and then follows Tegra 3.

Job: ARA is hiring

Folks, a former student of mine has a few job opportunities at ARA locally.

Best,

Ben

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Christopher Sexton ARA/SED <csexton@ara.com>

Hi Ben –

 

Our company is doing some hiring right now, specifically in the group that I work in. If you’ve got any bright students looking for full time jobs after graduation, I’d love to talk to them.

 

Specifically, I’m involved with the hiring for 3 postings: SED-2012-101, SED-2012-112 and SED-2012-113.

 

http://www.ara.com/Careers/ara-job-search.htm

 

Here’s a short blurb – we’re hiring at a few different levels (junior entry to more experienced).

 

Applied Research Associates, Inc. (ARA), a national leader in scientific and engineering research and development, is seeking a staff software developer to join our Decision Systems Group in Raleigh, NC. The selected candidate will develop, code, test, and debug new software or enhancements to existing software under direction from senior developers/engineers. Our development approach fosters communication and collaboration across multiple scientific disciplines, and provides all members of our teams opportunities to contribute creatively to our projects. The successful applicant must have skills in analysis and design of software components in an object-oriented environment. This position supports ARA’s growing work in application development for national vulnerability and event analysis.

 Position Requirements:

• Understanding of the application development life cycle
• Proficient with C++, Java, and object-oriented analysis & design (OOAD)
• Possession of an Active DoD Secret Security Clearance or the ability to obtain one
• Strong oral presentation and written communication skills

Position Preferences:

• Knowledge of and experience working in a Scrum and/or XP software development environment
• Experience developing Qt and/or MFC GUIs
• Experience using modern software configuration management tools (e.g., Rational ClearCase, SVN, Git)
• Experience using OpenSceneGraph and/or OpenGL
• Experience with GIS Toolkits
• Experience using XML SDKs
• Experience in physics-based modeling, simulation, or distributed component technologies

http://intranet.ara.com/tools/docs/Logocircle.jpg" width="55" />

Chris G Sexton Staff Software Developer Applied Research Associates, Inc. office: 919.582.3300, direct: 919.582.3318

 

 

Announcement: pencasts up

Hey folks,

If you go to our lecture notes page, you'll find that the pencasts I've made so far for this class are up. These let you listen to what I say and watch what I write during lecture. You'll need Acrobat Reader 10.x to listen.

Have fun!

Best,

Ben

Reading: GPUs and optimization

Hey folks,

On Wednesday we'll read more about GPUs and optimization. Please read the papers by Woolley and Garland and Kirk at our wiki site.

Adam will lead discussion of whichever paper he likes!

Best,

Ben

Find: Epic Games working on a PC exclusive, wants fans to 'encourage' it to make more

Good move. 

Epic Games working on a PC exclusive, wants fans to 'encourage' it to make more

The Verge - All Posts

Epic Games creative lead Cliff Bleszinski and president Mike Capps revealed today at PAX East that they are working on a PC exclusive title, Joystiq reports — and Capps confirmed the effort today in a comment left over at Polygon, saying that "we're very happy to be making a PC-focused title... making PC games is fun." Capps says that people should tell them if they want to see more PC titles, and that this new title "came from listening to our fans" — "that's a great feeling and it really impacts us and our plans." Nothing else about the game has been announced, but if Epic decides to push the boundaries, a PC-only game could utilize graphics horsepower that's leaps and bounds ahead of current-gen consoles. Be sure to head on over...

Find: Wii U graphical power about on par with Xbox 360 and PS3, suggest developers

Wii continues its tradition of being one gen behind. 

Wii U graphical power about on par with Xbox 360 and PS3, suggest developers

The Verge - All Posts

There's been a lot of chatter lately about Sony and Microsoft's rumored next-generation consoles, but the only company that actually announced its next hardware is Nintendo. In our time spent with the Wii U, it's obvious this console packs far more graphics power than its predecessor, and appears to be on par with the Xbox 360 or PS3. However, we're starting to hear conflicting reports as to just how the Wii U stacks up. Several anonymous developers have told Gamesindustry International that the Wii U is less powerful than the aging Xbox 360 and PS3. One source said "some things are better, mostly as a result of it being a more modern design. But overall the Wii U just can't quite keep up."

Countering that opinion is Marvin Donald of...

Reading: global illumination

Hey folks,

For our readings on Monday, we'll look at the Kajiya and Tokuyoshi papers from our global illumination wiki. Matt and Hilay will present.

Best,

Ben

Find: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 Review: Retaking The Performance Crown

The new nvidia architecture debuts. 

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 Review: Retaking The Performance Crown

AnandTech

“How do you follow up on Fermi?” That’s the question we had going into NVIDIA’s press briefing for the GeForce GTX 680 and the Kepler architecture earlier this month. With Fermi NVIDIA not only captured the performance crown for gaming, but they managed to further build on their success in the professional markets with Tesla and Quadro. Though it was a very clearly a rough start for NVIDIA, Fermi ended up doing quite well in the end.

So how do you follow up on Fermi? As it turns out, you follow it up with something that is in many ways more of the same. With a focus on efficiency, NVIDIA has stripped Fermi down to the core and then built it back up again; reducing power consumption and die size alike, all while maintaining most of the aspects we’ve come to know with Fermi. The end result of which is NVIDIA’s next generation GPU architecture: Kepler.

Launching today is the GeForce GTX 680, at the heart of which is NVIDIA’s new GK104 GPU, based on their equally new Kepler architecture. As we’ll see, not only has NVIDIA retaken the performance crown with the GeForce GTX 680, but they have done so in a manner truly befitting of their drive for efficiency.

Reading: real time ambient occlusion

Hey folks,

For our readings on Monday, we'll read the first two papers on our ambient occlusion wiki, by Bunnell and Mittring. Raviteja and Ian will lead discussion.

See you soon....

Ben.

Spotted: A Significance Cache for Accelerating Global Illumination

Always interested in global illumination acceleration, and Chalmers has done lots of perceptual work. 

A Significance Cache for Accelerating Global Illumination

CG Forum

Abstract

Rendering using physically based methods requires substantial computational resources. Most methods that are physically based use straightforward techniques that may excessively compute certain types of light transport, while ignoring more important ones. Importance sampling is an effective and commonly used technique to reduce variance in such methods. Most current approaches for physically based rendering based on Monte Carlo methods sample the BRDF and cosine term, but are unable to sample the indirect illumination as this is the term that is being computed. Knowledge of the incoming illumination can be especially useful in the case of hard to find light paths, such as caustics or scenes which rely primarily on indirect illumination. To facilitate the determination of such paths, we propose a caching scheme which stores important directions, and is analytically sampled to calculate important paths. Results show an improvement over BRDF sampling and similar illumination importance sampling.

Find: The iPad's Retina Display goes under the microscope in screen comparison

Nice images of different display layouts. 

The iPad's Retina Display goes under the microscope in screen comparison

The Verge - All Posts

Before Apple's latest iPad was announced, we saw some early comparisons of an unpowered version of the device's display panel. Now that the iPad is out, the logical next step was to do the same with the real deal, and UI designer Lukas Mathis has taken on the challenge, comparing the display's pixels to several other devices on his blog. Using a USB microscope, Mathis examined the quadrupled pixel count on the new iPad, while also putting it up against the iPad 2, iPhone 4S, Blackberry PlayBook, and the Kindle Fire, amongst many others. While obviously demonstrating the iPad's superiority on the pixel front, it's also a primer on different screen technologies themselves, from the unique pixel arrangement of the Nintendo 3DS's 3D panel,...

Spotted: Evaluating Display Fidelity and Interaction Fidelity in a Virtual Reality Game

I'm always interested in the visual vs temporal fidelity trade off, and this paper looks like it hits that square. 

Evaluating Display Fidelity and Interaction Fidelity in a Virtual Reality Game

IEEE TVCG

In recent years, consumers have witnessed a technological revolution that has delivered more–realistic experiences in their own homes through high–definition, stereoscopic televisions and natural, gesture–based video game consoles. Although these experiences are more realistic, offering higher levels of fidelity, it is not clear how the increased display and interaction aspects of fidelity impact the user experience. Since immersive virtual reality (VR) allows us to achieve very high levels of fidelity, we designed and conducted a study that used a six–sided CAVE to evaluate display fidelity and interaction fidelity independently, at extremely high and low levels, for a VR first–person shooter (FPS) game. Our goal was to gain a better understanding of the effects of fidelity on the user in a complex, performance–intensive context. The results of our study indicate that both display and interaction fidelity significantly affect strategy and performance, as well as subjective judgments of presence, engagement, and usability. In particular, performance results were strongly in favor of two conditions: low–display, low–interaction fidelity (representative of traditional FPS games) and high–display, high–interaction fidelity (similar to the real world). 

Guest: Daniel Wright of Epic Games, March 28

Folks,

We'll be visited on March 28 by Daniel Wright of Epic Games. Daniel is a graduate of NC State who  now works on Epic's very successful engine UE3. Daniel will speak about what he's up to at Epic a bit, then answer any questions you may have.

Talk: Thursday 10:00 AM -- Games talk

Games talk.

Thursday March 15, 2012, 10:00 AM
How do we make interactive narratives and what would that even mean?
http://research.csc.ncsu.edu/colloquia/seminar-post.php?id=452

----------------

Find: Analysis of the new Apple iPad

After analysis, anand says ipad graphics are really just 30% faster. 

Analysis of the new Apple iPad

AnandTech

Yesterday Apple unveiled its third generation iPad, simply called the new iPad, at an event in San Francisco. The form factor remains mostly unchanged with a 9.7-inch display, however the new device is thicker at 9.4mm vs. 8.8mm for its predecessor. The added thickness was necessary to support the iPad's new 2048 x 1536 Retina Display.

Tablet Specification Comparison
	ASUS Transformer Pad Infinity	Apple's new iPad (2012)	Apple iPad 2
Dimensions	263 x 180.8 x 8.5mm	241.2 x 185.7 x 9.4mm	241.2 x 185.7 x 8.8mm
Display	10.1-inch 1920 x 1200 Super IPS+	9.7-inch 2048 x 1536 IPS	9.7-inch 1024 x 768 IPS
Weight (WiFi)	586g	652g	601g
Weight (4G LTE)	586g	662g	601g
Processor (WiFi)	1.6GHz NVIDIA Tegra 3 T33 (4 x Cortex A9)	Apple A5X (2 x Cortex A9, PowerVR SGX 543MP4)	1GHz Apple A5 (2 x Cortex A9, PowerVR SGX543MP2)
Processor (4G LTE)	1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 MSM8960 (2 x Krait)	Apple A5X (2 x Cortex A9, PowerVR SGX 543MP4)	1GHz Apple A5 (2 x Cortex A9, PowerVR SGX543MP2)
Connectivity	WiFi , Optional 4G LTE	WiFi , Optional 4G LTE	WiFi , Optional 3G
Memory	1GB	1GB	512MB
Storage	16GB - 64GB	16GB - 64GB	16GB
Battery	25Whr	42.5Whr	25Whr
Pricing	$599 - $799 est	$499 - $829	$399, $529

Driving the new display is Apple's A5X SoC. Apple hasn't been too specific about what's inside the A5X other than to say it features "quad-core graphics". Upon further prodding Apple did confirm that there are two CPU cores inside the SoC. It's safe to assume that there are still a pair of Cortex A9s in the A5X but now paired with a PowerVR SGX543MP4 instead of the 543MP2 used in the iPad 2.

Read on for our analysis of Apple's 3rd generation iPad.

Reading: bumps

Folks,

On Monday we'll finish discussing our caustics papers. On Wednesday, we'll discuss two classic papers for helping us to create bumpy surfaces, with Hilay & Adam taking point. You'll find the papers in our wiki: one by Blinn introduces bump mapping, and another by Cook introduces displacement mapping (along with shading).

Best,

Ben

Find: 1-up for web games

Nice leads to web graphics tech. 

1-up for web games

Google Code Blog

By David Glazer, Engineering Director, Google+

Hundreds of millions of users are already having fun playing games on the web. With GDC going on this week (#googlegdc), we wanted to give you an update on our efforts to improve the web ecosystem for game developers.

New technology capabilities

With HTML5, WebGL, and WebRTC, the browser has evolved into a feature-rich gaming platform. We are working closely with all browser vendors to further improve the web’s capabilities with new HTML5 APIs such as Gamepad, Mouse Lock, and Fullscreen.

Native Client (NaCl), a technology that enables console quality games in the browser, is also gaining traction. Starting today, the BlitzTech Gaming engine and the Havok Physics Engine have announced NaCl support, complementing a rich ecosystem of game middleware. Some of the latest games that take advantage of NaCl’s capabilities are Zombie Track Meat, Eets Munchies, Go Home Dinosaurs, Dark Legends, Air Mech, and Ubisoft’s From Dust. You can see an early preview of them at our GDC booth.

Improved distribution and monetization

Using social information in game play allows users to connect in more meaningful ways and developers to build even more compelling games. Google+ games continues to grow and attract exciting new games, including the exclusive launch of the epic fantasy title Kingdom Age last week. To help social game developers reach more users globally, all Google+ games will soon be available in the Chrome Web Store, providing an audience of hundreds of millions of users.

In addition, our In-App Payments solution recently added support for more currencies and optimized the payment flow to enable higher conversions.

Visit us at GDC and on the web

To get started working with us, you can now access a new site, developers.google.com/games, that pulls together all our technologies to help you build, distribute, promote, and monetize your games. And for those of you attending GDC this week, stop by our developer day and our booth. We are looking forward to continuing our collaboration with the gaming community and bringing the best games to hundreds of millions of Internet gamers.

David Glazer, Engineering Director for Google+ .

Posted by Scott Knaster, Editor

Find: Ralph Baer, video game pioneer, talks inventing as he turns 90

Huh! Simon too, eh?

Ralph Baer, video game pioneer, talks inventing as he turns 90

The Verge - All Posts

Ralph Baer is a name many of this generation's gamers may not be familiar with. Yet if he hadn't invented what would become the Magnavox Odyssey — the first console to enter homes 40 years ago — there's no telling what the industry would look like today. As the "father of videogames" turns 90 this week, David Friedman is using the opportunity to share portions of an interview conducted with Baer last summer on his Ironic Sans blog.

Perhaps most surprising is Baer's apparent disappointment with the path the gaming industry has traveled since his Odyssey hit store shelves in 1972. Whereas his mission was to create a family-oriented device, Baer voices reservations with the current industry outlook, saying games have "degenerated into a...

Find: Apple announces the A5X: a system-on-chip with quad-core graphics

Aha, so this is indeed imagination tech's gpu in the iPad. 

Apple announces the A5X: a system-on-chip with quad-core graphics

The Verge - All Posts

Traditionally, Apple has been content to stay a step behind the latest processor technology, and reap the power efficiency benefits, and that's just what we heard it would do again... but today, right now on stage, the Cupertino computer company unveiled a mobile chip with quad core graphics, not a quad-core CPU. This is the Apple A5X.

The A5, if you'll recall, had a integrated PowerVR SGX543MP2, a dual-core graphics solution that did quite nicely in games, but recently the PlayStation Vita used the quad-core version of the same, the SGX543MP4+. We've got a hunch that's what you'll find inside the A5X as well. It's also worth noting that Samsung builds quad-core ARM Mali graphics into some of its existing chips, like the one in the...

Find: The makers of Heavy Rain show off their stunning new technology

The next challenge of graphics is displaying emotion. 

This stuff looks better than gollum and it runs interactively. 

Of course it's not interactive....

The makers of Heavy Rain show off their stunning new technology

The Verge - All Posts

Heavy Rain started as a tech demo that in 2006 blew gamers away. Today developers Quantic Dreams showed off their new demo, the results of a new PS3 game engine and new capture technology not yet tied to a specific game.

It is not, Quantic Dreams David Cage promises, their new game. But it's obvious that the tech will most certainly show up in the next thing the studio makes for the PS3.

The video came during Cage's "Technologies to Support Emotion" GDC talk. The talk centered around how virtual actors and performance capture can trigger emotions in games.

Cage is the head of game studio Quantic Dream which is responsible for a number of narratively-deep video games including Fahrenheit and 2010's Heavy Rain for the PlayStation 3.

Heavy...

Find: Nvidia will put Apple's A5X claims to the test, says it's 'pleased' by Tegra 3 comparison

Nvidia not planning on taking apple's slam without a response. 

Nvidia will put Apple's A5X claims to the test, says it's 'pleased' by Tegra 3 comparison

The Verge - All Posts

Remember a few hours ago, when Apple claimed its new A5X chip had four times the graphical prowess of Nvidia's Tegra 3? As you might imagine, Nvidia doesn't intend to simply let that be. The graphics firm told ZDNet that without specific benchmarks to back up that claim, "Apple has a very generic statement" right now, but that Nvidia would certainly be purchasing a third-generation iPad on March 16th to test those claims for itself. Citations or no, if the new iPad does indeed have twice the graphical potential of the iPad 2, the "4x" quote might not be too far off in certain applications: AnandTech ran the Tegra 3-powered Transformer Prime against the iPad 2 in a run of GLBenchmark, and found a few performance differences.

Find: Here are your winners of the 2012 Game Developers Choice Awards

Including best mobile games. 

Here are your winners of the 2012 Game Developers Choice Awards

The Verge - All Posts

The Game Developers Choice Awards are voted on by developers for developers. It's a chance for the members of the games industry to reward their peers, to say this is the best work happening in video games today. One would expect this to be the folks at flush AAA publishers but many of tonight's winners were indies as if to say: Finally, indies and mainstream games are on equal ground. Gamers deserve excellent games from both sectors, and the awards are one way of showing they're getting it.

The night's host was Cliff Blezinski, the director of the Gears of War trilogy, and the face of Epic Games. Cliff has a dry sense of humor that connected with pockets of the audience. Jokes involving fellow industry stars, like Geoff Keighley, host...

Find: iOS game devs react to new iPad specs

Memory clearly needed to support new hi res display. 4gb games within a year. (and 2 hour downloads). 

iOS game devs react to new iPad specs

The Verge - All Posts

Earlier today, Apple revealed the next generation iPad to the world. As many expected, the updated tablet, which will hit stores next week, will come with a higher resolution screen (2048x1536) and a more powerful, quad-core graphics processor. Gaming is likely to be affected the most by these increased specs, so we reached out to several well-known iOS developers to get their first impressions on the hardware.

Mike Capps of Epic (Infinity Blade, Infinity Blade Dungeons)

"The quad core [processor] makes a big difference in terms of what we can draw. When you think about it, they increased the resolution of the screen by a factor of four and they doubled the graphics performance, that wouldn't make you think, Great, we've got tons ...

Find: Will Wright cites Pinball Construction Set as major inspiration

Mmhmm, pcs rocked. 

Will Wright cites Pinball Construction Set as major inspiration

The Verge - All Posts

Speaking at the GDC Panel "Forgotten Tales Remembered," Wright says he got an Apple II early in his career, which inspired him with its possibilities. The games he remembers playing that tickled his mind were Choplifter, Flight Simulator and Sundog.

Wright says Choplifter was interesting in that in it you were rescuing people, not killing them.

"I loved the action of this game," Wright said. He was struck by the little people waving their arms, waiting to be rescued.

Flight Simulator he enjoyed because it was a self-contained world with its own rules. Sundog, he says was amazing an huge and reminds him now of grand theft auto.

The big inspiration for Wright, however, was Pinball Construction Set. Wright says that Pinball Construction set...

Valve: we won't be releasing a Steam Box console in the immediate future

No steam console. 

Valve: we won't be releasing a Steam Box console in the immediate future

The Verge - All Posts

We recently heard that Valve was in the process of developing a gaming console for the Steam platform, which would see it partnering with hardware manufacturers in a gaming-world riff on Google's Android strategy. In a conversation with Kotaku, however, Valve VP of Marketing Doug Lombardi said that the company didn't have plans to ship any such hardware itself in the near future. According to Lombardi, any test units or boxes Valve had recently built were part of testing efforts for Steam's "Big Picture" mode, which will allow gamers to more easily play games on TV-connected PCs. He did confirm that the company has been experimenting with the biometric feedback devices we reported on, but that "it's a long way from Valve shipping any...

Find: Unreal Engine 4 demo runs on Nvidia's Kepler

Early word on epics ue4. Samaritan isn't the upper limit with a Kepler card. 

Unreal Engine 4 demo runs on Nvidia's Kepler

The Verge - All Posts

Last year Epic Games showed the next-generation "Samaritan" demo, which used a litany of new technologies to create one of the most impressive graphics presentations to date. At that time, Samaritan ran on three high-end Nvidia graphic cards and a power source the size of a cinder block. Today, Epic Games is able to run Samaritan on a single card, the Nvidia Kepler hardware, which powers their new line of GPUs. But that's not all they can get the Kepler to do.

"That board we ran the Samaritan demo on is the same board we're running the Unreal Engine 4 demos on," Epic Games vice president Mark Rein told Vox Games, referring to a demo of the company's next engine, shown behind closed doors at the GDC and accompanied by a severe...

Find: Details on Nvidia's Kepler-powered GeForce GTX 680 GPU reportedly leak

Over 1500 cores, with new core designs. One core runs the Samaritan demo. 

Details on Nvidia's Kepler-powered GeForce GTX 680 GPU reportedly leak

The Verge - All Posts

We've been expecting GPUs based on Kepler — Nvidia's 28nm successor to the Fermi line — since the company first revealed the product's existence back in 2010. Things seem to be getting closer now, with Epic Games showing off a demo on Kepler hardware at this week's Game Developers Conference, and details on the first shipping commercial product starting to leak. Heise Online is reporting that several manufacturers at the CeBIT expo stated that the first Kepler-powered card will be the GeForce GTX 680. Powered by the GK104 core, the card will reportedly ship with 2GB of GDDR5 memory connected via a 256-bit memory controller, and will feature 1536 CUDA cores. A 4GB version will be available at a later date. The card is also said to...

Find: Imagination Technologies GPU face-off: PowerVR SGX540 vs. SGX544

Need to find out which gpu is in the new iPad. we'll be seeing more of these mobile gpu faceoffs as mobile computing becomes more dominant. 

Imagination Technologies GPU face-off: PowerVR SGX540 vs. SGX544

The Verge - All Posts

Curious how today's middle-of-the-road mobile graphics compares against next year's tech? Look no further than this comparison video we shot at the 2012 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco this week. We pit the Intel Medfield Reference Platform, with Imagination Technologies' wildly popular PowerVR SGX540 GPU, against the new PowerVR SGX544 graphics in ST-Ericsson's Novathor L9540 prototype design. Not only does the new GPU manage around double the framerate in this particular demo, it does it at a higher 720p resolution and with more visual effects. Mind you, that's perhaps to be expected given that the SGX540 dates back to 2008 and SGX544 silicon like the Novathor may not be in devices until next year. There's also CPU...

Find: A profile of William Higinbotham, the inventor of the first video game

The first video game is still compelling to watch. 

A profile of William Higinbotham, the inventor of the first video game

The Verge - All Posts

Physicist William Higinbotham invented the first video game, Tennis for Two, at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island in New York in 1958, though he has rarely been recognized for his achievement. The Daily has a short profile of the man and his invention, which was developed at a nuclear lab, the Brookhaven National Laboratory. Ten years into his career, Higinbotham sketched out the concept for Tennis for Two in a few hours, then built it with the assistance of an engineer who also worked at the lab. The Lab began using the game on Visitors' Days as a way to give technology good PR in the face of fears about nuclear energy, and Higinbotham continued to upgrade the game, giving it a larger screen and other options. Higinbotham...

Find: February video game sales down 20 percent in US, Xbox 360 still best-selling console

2012 is a down year, but then consoles are all very mature, so it seems about right. 

NPD: February video game sales down 20 percent in US, Xbox 360 still best-selling console

The Verge - All Posts

February historically isn't a huge month for video game sales, but numbers from market research group NPD show that sales in the US have fallen 20 percent compared to 2011. Overall sales in February totalled some $1.06 billion, a drop from the $1.33 billion in hardware and software sold during the same time last year. This comes after January also saw a drop in 2012, with 38 percent less sales than in 2011. The Xbox 360 once again lead the way for console sales moving 426,000 units, and according to Microsoft this makes the 360 the best-selling console for 14 straight months. Meanwhile, on the software side, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 topped the charts, followed by Final Fantasy XIII-2 and UFC Undisputed 3. No Vita games managed to...

Find: Epic touts console-quality graphics in browser-based Flash games with Unreal Engine

The flash is dead, long live flash!

Epic touts console-quality graphics in browser-based Flash games with Unreal Engine

Ars Technica

Over the years, Adobe's Flash environment has earned a somewhat deserved reputation for primarily hosting simple, 2D games that can't really hold a candle to the fully realized 3D worlds of a game console or dedicated PC title. Epic Games gave reason to reconsider that stereotype at a Game Developers Conference presentation that showed off the power of its Unreal Engine 3 running completely in a browser-based Flash environment.

Find: Apple's iPad with retina display, quad core graphics ships March 16

Cool display, graphics claimed to be 4x tegra3!

Apple's iPad with retina display, quad core graphics ships March 16

Ars Technica

Apple announced a new version of the iPad at an event today in San Francisco. The new hardware will have a retina display, a 5-megapixel rear camera, access to 4G LTE networks, and an A5 X chip with quad-core graphics.

"To this day, no one has yet matched that display technology on any mobile device," Phil Schiller said of the 2048x1536 display (that works out to 264 pixels per inch). The new A5X chip is meant to excel at graphics, and has four times the performance of NVIDIA's quad-core Tegra 3 chip, said Schiller.

Spotted: Spatio-Temporal Filtering of Indirect Lighting for Interactive Global Illumination

Sounds quite similar to our own frameless work. 

Spatio-Temporal Filtering of Indirect Lighting for Interactive Global Illumination

CG Forum

Abstract

We introduce a screen-space statistical filtering method for real-time rendering with global illumination. It is inspired by statistical filtering proposed by Meyer et al. to reduce the noise in global illumination over a period of time by estimating the principal components from all rendered frames. Our work extends their method to achieve nearly real-time performance on modern GPUs. More specifically, our method employs the candid covariance-free incremental PCA to overcome several limitations of the original algorithm by Meyer et al., such as its high computational cost and memory usage that hinders its implementation on GPUs. By combining the reprojection and per-pixel weighting techniques, our method handles the view changes and object movement in dynamic scenes as well.

Spotted: The State of the Art in Interactive Global Illumination

These euro graphics reviews are nice. 

The State of the Art in Interactive Global Illumination

CG Forum

Abstract

The interaction of light and matter in the world surrounding us is of striking complexity and beauty. Since the very beginning of computer graphics, adequate modelling of these processes and efficient computation is an intensively studied research topic and still not a solved problem. The inherent complexity stems from the underlying physical processes as well as the global nature of the interactions that let light travel within a scene. This paper reviews the state of the art in interactive global illumination (GI) computation, i.e., methods that generate an image of a virtual scene in less than 1 s with an as exact as possible, or plausible, solution to the light transport. Additionally, the theoretical background and attempts to classify the broad field of methods are described. The strengths and weaknesses of different approaches, when applied to the different visual phenomena, arising from light interaction are compared and discussed. Finally, the paper concludes by highlighting design patterns for interactive GI and a list of open problems. 

Spotted: Lazy Visibility Evaluation for Exact Soft Shadows

Seems to be similar to the akenine Moeller shadow volume technique. 

Lazy Visibility Evaluation for Exact Soft Shadows

CG Forum

Abstract

This paper presents a novel approach to compute high quality and noise-free soft shadows using exact visibility computations. This work relies on a theoretical framework allowing to group lines according to the geometry they intersect. From this study, we derive a new algorithm encoding lazily the visibility from a polygon. Contrary to previous works on from-polygon visibility, our approach is very robust and straightforward to implement. We apply this algorithm to solve exactly and efficiently the visibility of an area light source from any point in a scene. As a consequence, results are not sensitive to noise, contrary to soft shadows methods based on area light source sampling. We demonstrate the reliability of our approach on different scenes and configurations.

Spotted: A Subdivision-Based Representation for Vector Image Editing

Vector reps will be important for future display technology. Hoppe and Forsyth do excellent work. 

PrePrint: A Subdivision-Based Representation for Vector Image Editing

IEEE CS TVCG

Vector graphics has been employed in a wide variety of applications due to its scalability and editability. Editability is a high priority for artists and designers who wish to produce vector-based graphical content with minimal user interaction. In this paper, we introduce a new vector image representation based on piecewise smooth subdivision surfaces, as well as techniques based on this representation to support a variety of editing operations, including image object deformation, color editing, image stylization, and vector image processing. These operations effectively create novel vector graphics by reusing and altering existing image vectorization results. Because image vectorization yields an abstraction of the original raster image, controlling the level of detail of this abstraction is highly desirable. To this end, we design a feature-oriented vector image pyramid that offers multiple levels of abstraction simultaneously. Our new vector image representation can be rasterized efficiently using GPU-accelerated subdivision. Experiments indicate that our vector image representation achieves high visual quality and better supports editing operations than existing representations.

Reading: soft shadows and caustics

Hey folks,

We'll complete our soft shadow readings Wednesday with Raviteja's help.

And we'll start our caustics readings, with Matt and Ian taking point.

See you then!

Best,

Ben

Spotted: User-Friendly Graph Editing for Procedural Modeling of Buildings

Rule based building generation is not user friendly. This may be a step forward. 

User-Friendly Graph Editing for Procedural Modeling of Buildings

IEEE CG&A

A proposed rule-based editing metaphor intuitively lets artists create buildings without changing their workflow. It's based on the realization that the rule base represents a directed acyclic graph and on a shift in the development paradigm from product-based to rule-based representations. Users can visually add or edit rules, connect them to control the workflow, and easily create commands that expand the artist's toolbox (for example, Boolean operations or local controlling operators). This approach opens new possibilities, from model verification to model editing through graph rewriting.

Spotted: Three-dimensional proxies for hand-drawn characters

Jessica Hodgins is a leader in animation and this work looks like it makes interesting connections between traditional 2d and new 3d methods. 

Three-dimensional proxies for hand-drawn characters

ACM TOG

Eakta Jain, Yaser Sheikh, Moshe Mahler, Jessica Hodgins

Drawing shapes by hand and manipulating computer-generated objects are the two dominant forms of animation. Though each medium has its own advantages, the techniques developed for one medium are not easily leveraged in the other medium because hand animation is two-dimensional, and inferring the third dimension is mathematically ambiguous. A second challenge is that the character is a consistent three-dimensional (3D) object in computer animation while hand animators introduce geometric inconsistencies in the two-dimensional (2D) shapes to better convey a character's emotional state and personality. In this work, we identify 3D proxies to connect hand-drawn animation and 3D computer animation. We present an integrated approach to generate three levels of 3D proxies: single-points, polygonal shapes, and a full joint hierarchy.

Sent with Reeder

Talks: Two games related speakers next week: Gillian Smith & Brian Magerko

Folks, 

Two games related talks in our department next week, both in EB2 3211:

Talk Title: Procedural Content Generation for Game Design
Speaker: Gillian Smith, Center for Games and Playable Media, UC Santa Cruz
Talk Date: Tuesday February 28, 2012, 12:30PM

Abstract: Computer game design has always been driven by technology, from advances in graphics to new user interfaces such as the Wii and Kinect. The future of game design lies in the development of technologies that enable new player experiences and game genres. This talk describes two ways in which procedural content generation stands to influence the future of games: as a tool that supports players designing their own content for games, and as a means for allowing meaningful player choices that change the game environment.

Talk Title: Creativity, Cognition, and Computation in Digital Media
Speaker: Brian Magerko, Georgia Institute of Technology
Talk Date: Wednesday February 29, 2012, 12PM

Abstract: This presentation will focus on the integration of studying human creativity and cognition with the purpose of creating digital media experiences that have a key computational component.  It will present two current works on this theme of creativity, cognition, and computation: the Digital Improv Project, an NSF-funded multi-year effort focused on the cognitive study of professional improvisational actors to inform interactive narrative technology practices; and EarSketch, a software and curriculum approach that leverages student creativity to learn computing principles through the remixing of music with code.  These two projects will be used as exemplars of Dr. Magerko's research in leveraging human creativity for the design of digital media technologies and experiences.  This talk will conclude with a description of the long-term trajectory for this research in entertainment and educational digital media applications with examples of upcoming projects.

Find: Nvidia: Tegra 3 smartphones will ship this quarter, integrated LTE chipset this year

Lte integrated into the SoC: longer battery life. 

Nvidia: Tegra 3 smartphones will ship this quarter, integrated LTE chipset this year

The Verge - All Posts

Nvidia announced its yearly earnings today, and while $4 billion of sales and $581 million in profit might sound like a bit of a snooze, CEO Jen-Hsun Huang spiced things up by telling investors that quad-core Tegra 3 smartphones are right around the corner.

This quarter we are expecting to ship Tegra 3 based superphones. At Mobile World Congress is when we expect to announce these devices, and we expect to announce and ship them this quarter.

Nvidia previously told us we could expect to see Tegra 3 phones at MWC, but it looks like you won't have long to wait to experience the fruits of the company's labor for yourself. Will those shipping products include the HTC Endeavor, the LG X3 and Fujitsu's new phone? We'll find out later this...

Find: A new standard in design: in-depth with the PlayStation Vita

They like it. Nice tour through the new ui. Not much on gameplay here. 

Feature: A new standard in design: in-depth with the PlayStation Vita

Ars Technica

It's a confusing time in the world of mobile and portable gaming. Consumers seem to be moving away from the idea that they need an entirely separate device to play games on the go, settling for cheap, generally simple touchscreen games on their cell phones and tablets. Nintendo, following up the insanely successful DS system that rested on a seemingly gimmicky double screen design, added a newer glasses-free 3D gimmick to its Nintendo 3DS—only to see extremely slow sales force it into a premature price drop. Sony's PlayStation Portable, meanwhile, has carved out a niche for itself as a serious gamer's system, especially in Japan, but is beginning to show its age as a system designed in the pre-smartphone era.

For the new PlayStation Vita, Sony responded to this confusion by throwing everything and the kitchen sink into the system. For hardcore gamers, there are two analog sticks—a first for a portable system—and a gigantic screen loaded with pixels. For casual players, there's the now-ubiquitous touchscreen as well as a unique rear touch panel to enable new tactile, touchy-feely gameplay. The Vita has two cameras, a GPS receiver, and a 3G data option. There's music and video players, a Web browser, Google Maps, and even a proximity-based social network. Oh, and it also plays games, I guess (more on those in a separate post).

Find: Why are gaming's academy awards such a non-event?

These awards are the oscars of gaming. But they aren't taking off because they are biased, with gamers paying for placement. Also they need legal permission from you personally. 

Why are gaming's academy awards such a non-event?

Ars Technica

When major entertainment industries host their annual awards, it's usually a major cultural milestone, with highly rated telecasts and breathless pre- and post-show coverage from the press. When gaming's Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences hosted its Interactive Achievement Awards last Thursday, the event warranted cursory coverage from most of the press and ignorance or indifference from most gamers.

Find: AMD's Eric Demers is Leaving the Company

Amd loses some graphics talent. 

AMD's Eric Demers is Leaving the Company

AnandTech

I just found out that AMD's Eric Demers (Corporate VP & CTO, Graphics Division) is leaving the company at the end of this week. He's not going to Intel or NVIDIA but I suspect that someone of Eric's talents will remain in the industry. I just had dinner with Eric a couple of weeks ago and he seemed very positive on AMD's roadmap going forward. Given how important the GPU is becoming in this ever expanding industry, someone like Eric is in very high demand. 

We now have an official statement from AMD:

Eric Demers, AMD Corporate Vice President and CTO, Graphics Business Unit, has decided leave AMD to pursue other opportunities. 

AMD Chief Technology Officer Mark Papermaster will assume interim responsibility for the Graphics Business Unit CTO role until a replacement is found. 

AMD remains fully committed to our critical graphics IP development and discrete GPU products.  We have a tremendous depth of talent in our organization, a game plan that is resonating with our customers and our team, and we are continuing to bring graphics-performance-leading products to market.  We will attract the right technology leader for this role.

We thank Eric for his contributions to the business and wish him well in his future endeavors.

Find: NVIDIA Kepler Line-up Leaked

45% faster than the amd 7970. 

NVIDIA Kepler Line-up Leaked

VizWorld.com

NVidia’s next hardware revision is code-named “Kepler”, but more than that is largely a mystery.  One site claims to have gotten a copy of some Kepler specs, and if they’re true it’s pretty impressive.

As the leaked chart shown, die size of GK110 is 550mm², which is not only bigger than 365mm² of Radeon HD 7970, but also 30mm² larger than its GF110. It’s said that GK110-based GeForce GTX 680 will be up to 45% faster than AMD Radeon HD 7970. As for the price, GTX 680 is set at US$649, US$100 higher than HD 7970.

Expected to drop in April & May, they’re showing numbers around 45% over Radeons HD7970 for $650.  Of course, without public confirmation it’s anybody’s guess.

via Entire NVIDIA Kepler Line-up Unearthed – Expreview.com.

Opp: SV Application Deadline February 13!!!

Hey folks,

Last day to apply to attend siggraph as a volunteer. SIGGRAPH is the premier graphics event. Highly recommended.

Best,

Ben

Benjamin Watson
Director, Design Graphics Lab | Associate Professor, Computer Science, NC State Univ.

919-513-0325 | designgraphics.ncsu.edu | @dgllab

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: <Mikki_Rose@siggraph.org>
Date: Sun, Feb 12, 2012 at 1:40 PM
Subject: SV Application Deadline February 13!!!
To: bwatson@ncsu.edu

Hello alumni! The SIGGRAPH 2012 Student Volunteer Program application deadline is rapidly approaching and we're asking for your help! All SV applications must be completed by Monday, 13 February 2012, 22:00 UTC/GMT (note, that is 2:00pm PST). If you or any students you know are applying would you please help spread the word about this deadline? If applications are started but still incomplete by that time they will not be considered for the program. Thank you so much for your help, we appreciate it!

Think they need some inspiration? Please feel free to share this video created by the SV Subcommittee, it's sure to get students red-diculously pumped!

Thank you again for your help, and good luck to your and your student friends!

~Mikki

Find: How close are we to truly photorealistic, real-time games?

Still a long way to go, tim's right. But closer. We we'd a paper on similar themes: 

http://koolhaas.csc.ncsu.edu/pages/docs/computer.pdf. 

The paper argues that pixels may not be the right primitive at this scale of realism. 

Also, I think Tim's right to mention modeling as a huge challenge in this context. 

How close are we to truly photorealistic, real-time games?

Ars Technica

Every graphical and technical advance the game industry has seen from Pong to Crysis has been a small step toward the end goal of a real-time, photorealistic 3D world that is truly indistinguishable from a real-world scene. Speaking at the DICE Summit Thursday, Epic Games founder and programmer Tim Sweeney examined the speed and direction of computing improvements and determined that we "might expect, over the course of our lifetime, we'd get to amounts of computing power that come very close to simulating reality."

Find: Microsoft publishes fancy-pants heterogeneous parallel GPGPU C++ AMP specification

Microsoft publishes fancy-pants heterogeneous parallel GPGPU C++ AMP specification

Ars Technica

Microsoft has published the specification for C++ AMP (Accelerated Massive Parallelism), its new system for heterogeneous parallel processing in C++. When Microsoft first announced C++ AMP in June last year, it said that it wanted to make the AMP specification open to all.

AMP has been developed by Microsoft with input from AMD and NVIDIA. Microsoft's implementation allows AMP programs to use both the main CPU and Direct3D video cards (via the company's DirectCompute API), though the specification should also permit OpenGL/OpenCL-based implementations.

Spotted: To make a social robot, key is satisfying the human mind

Robot researchers find a version of the uncanny valley for robots, just like the one for virtual characters. Someone needs to measure this valley. 

To make a social robot, key is satisfying the human mind

ScienceDaily: Mobile Computing News

Understanding the human mind is the key to social robotics, and researchers describe what we can expect from this field in the future.

Find: Engineers boost computer processor performance by over 20 percent

Word to the brother. By our Ncsu ece colleagues. 

Engineers boost computer processor performance by over 20 percent

ScienceDaily: Mobile Computing News

Researchers have developed a new technique that allows graphics processing units (GPUs) and central processing units (CPUs) on a single chip to collaborate – boosting processor performance by an average of more than 20 percent.

Readings: local illumination

Hey folks,

Here is our next set of readings. We'll do the occlusion readings we've been postponing first, then these. We may not get through the occlusion readings Wednesday, because we have a bit more lecture on Cook Torrance to finish then. We'll pick up where we left off Monday and continue onto these.

We'll read the Phong and Cook & Torrance papers from the local illumination wiki page. Khatri & Sen will present.

Best,

Ben