Beyond3D Featured ContentIt's Dead Jim - a debate about the future of the graphics API
Love them or hate them, standardised IHV agnostic(-ish) graphics APIs have changed the landscape in a mostly positive way. Yet some bear them ill will. We set out for the truth about their future fate, hoping that we can handle it.
As AMD announces that their Q1 revenue will fall significantly short of expectations, the biggest question that poses itself is why things are so much worse than in Q4, but also how difficult it will be to fix, and what other profitability numbers should be expected in Q1 and Q2…
A little belated perhaps, given the release date on Monday, but Intel have upped the frequency of their fastest quad-core desktop processor to create the 2.93GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6800. Running at the same external freq. as the dual-core Core 2 Extreme X6800, the new processor debuts at $1199,…
TSMC has announced that their low-power 45nm process will be entering production in September, with general purpose and high performance variants following sooner rather than later. Traditionally, handheld chipsets will be the first to use a new process as they have much lower yield requirements. FPGAs, as per their highy…
VIA has denied rumours according to which they have successfully negociated a new chipset license with Intel, as their current one has expired on April 7. Assuming these rumours are indeed incorrect, they may no longer design new Intel chipsets, and will need to stop selling their existing line-up in…
In a move indicating Sony may be preparing to outsource production of chips beyond the 65nm process, they have opted to leave the research alliance formed with NEC and Toshiba in March of last year. Founded for the purpose of sharing the escalating research costs associated with 45nm fabrication, the…
This week's forum roundup includes a spectacular thread on anti-aliasing, anecdotes from developers about their first jobs in the game programming industry, and an update on Beyond3D_Team's Folding@Home efforts. Read on for the goodies.
NVIDIA have released ForceWare 97.94 for Windows XP (all flavours and both x86 variants), for users of their GeForce 8800 products. The release notes are light on details, but Beyond3D forum users report that the notes don't contain the whole story (sadly) and that fixes are in there for more…
A fairly extensive interview with AMD's Henri Richard, Executive VP and Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, was published at HardwareZone yesterday. It mentions a variety of subjects, and some answers could certainly be deemed quite interesting. At roughly the same time, TG Daily also published another interview with NVIDIA's Rob…
EETimes recently published an interesting article on the rapidly rising costs of semiconductor fabs, process R&D and chip design. The comments in the article, by an employee of Synopsys and an analyst of VLSI Research, echo previous predictions made by TSMC's Chairman and Founder, Morris Chang. Basically, at the 45…
AMD have released their GDC 2007 presentations via their developer website. Highlights include AMD coding superstars Natalya Tatarchuk and Guennadi Riguer presenting alongside Crytek's Carsten Wenzel in the D3D-led sessions (which include a good chunk of D3D10 content), and Natalya presenting again with DICE's Johan Andersson on Frostbite's use of…
A few weeks following the entry of the PlayStation 3 and its Cell processor into Stanford’s Folding@Home program - a project aiming to study protein folding via molecular simulation in the hopes that scientists may gain insights…
In the last couple of months, more and more focus has progressively been given to Intel's desire of competing against NVIDIA and AMD's GPUs through their Visual Computing Group (VCG). Today, we are publishing a presentation by VCG's Chief Architect, Douglas Carmean, on…
Bill Gates made a rare appearance at last years Electronic Entertainment Expo to talk about the future of the Xbox and Live platforms. His message was simple: Live Anywhere. Beginning May 7th Gate's vision will…
In a move that has been widely rumoured for a while, AMD has just significantly reduced the price of its entire CPU line-up, with the FX-74 moving from $999 to $799 and the Sempron 3000+ now selling for $31 instead of $41, making it cheaper than anything previously in AMD's line-up. Intel is expected…
Microsoft has just released the April 2007 version of the DirectX SDK, with improvements to XACT, PIX and the HLSL Shader Compiler. There's also a new sample illustrating "Effect Pools', which make it possible to share variable or shaders between effects, thus saving redundant state-setting…
SiS just released their monthly revenue information for March, while VIA had done it a few days ago, and both exceed expectations, with significant month-on-month increases; +76% for SiS and +39% for VIA. In both cases, it should be noted that February is traditionally a weak month, because…
DisplayPort, the competitor to the HDMI standard prevalent in the consumer electronics space, has just seen its 1.1 version ratified by its founding organization, VESA. The standard is described as being "free to use, open and extensible", which marks some contrast with HDMI's…
The Street is reporting that NVIDIA will launch a brand, similar to its GeForce and Quadro brands of cards, specifically for GPGPU apps. This follows AMD's launch of its Stream Computing line, based on its R580 chipset.
NVIDIA is now silently introducing the nForce 650i Ultra, and it should be available shortly. The motherboard will use the same chips as the nForce 650i SLI (C55+MCP51, while the 680i Series uses C55+MCP55) but will be substantially cheaper while the physical layout will only sport one x16 PCI-E…
Intel, in a conference call with various members of the online technology press, have revealed some key details about their upcoming 45nm processor families. Penryn encompasses the evolution of the Core architecture on Intel's latest production process, while Nehalem is brand new, taking things…