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• For some, Intel's lack of graphics focus for game support is unbecoming of the world's largest graphics processor vendor. Intel's integrated graphics GMA 950 core supports DirectX 9 and offers up to 10.6 GB/s memory bandwidth, 667 MHz DDR2 and 1.6 Gpixels/s and 1.6 Gtexels/s fill rates. Despite this, the device still has far to go for acceptable game play, according to Mark Rein, vice president for Epic Games, the developer of the Unreal graphics engine and game series. "Before our release of Unreal 2007, we hope that Intel becomes competitive," Rein said. "But today's very popular games, which are not next-generation games, are virtually unplayable for anybody that cares about gaming. Our fingers are crossed." Indeed, Rein said that "we have been burned by integrated graphics. It is really a show me situation. They definitely have to improve things if they want to offer a viable solution for applications like [Windows Vista], for example, but they are certainly not shipping one now." There is also a disparity between Intel's emphasis on CPU power for gaming and how they de-emphasize the graphics component, Rein said. "Intel is out evangelizing multi-core and wanting people to do hyperthreading and multi-threading, and have all these technologies for more powerful games to use more CPU effort," Rein said. "But it is meaningless if you don't have graphics to keep up with the CPU, and the majority of graphics [processors] just don't keep up." The lack of support is especially apparent with laptops, underscored by how difficult it is to use anything but an Intel integrated graphics processor, Rein noted. "If you change from a desktop to laptop, you are often pretty much out of luck as far as high-end gaming goes," Rein said. "What is the point of shipping multi-core CPUs, if they are only going to have integrated graphics?" Conclusion Does Intel intend to change the status quo? As it stands now, Intel has no plans to grow its market share in the graphics processor market, and will continue to leave high-end gaming graphics processor designs up to the NVIDIAs and the ATIs. In the future, you may be able to just get by with a newly-released Intel integrated graphics processor, but intensive game play for new titles should continue to necessitate an investment in a graphics card. Intel's graphics processor mantra now is less about harnessing the full power of Doom III than it is about enabling home entertainment experiences that will not involve an inordinate amount of FPS gaming. "We will continue to improve upon video and media playback capability, which is where we see the future of the mainstream consumer's [demands] for the accelerated part of the video playback. [This deals with] how the resolution is supported on the screen, and things like that," Silva said. "We will continue to do a lot for the home entertainment applications."

• The Witcher (PC) Polish game developer CD Projekt actually first announced this game at E3 2004. Fast forward two years and the fantasy action RPG is back at E3, this time with demo versions available at CD Projekt's booth. The Witcher is based on worlds and characters of best-selling fantasy author Andrzej Sapkowski, who penned the popular Hexer series. The game, scheduled for a spring 2007 release, looks to combine intense real-time action with extensive character customization features as well as a complex storyline based on Sapkowski's works. Unreal Tournament 2007 (PC) The latest version of the Unreal franchise from developer Epic and publisher Midway Games, Unreal Tournament 2007 was actually announced at last year's E3. This year, however, Midway is promising to show off the title's next-generation game play, in addition to enhanced modifiability and visuals for the Unreal Engine technology. War Front: Turning Point (PC) A real-time strategy game, War Front: Turning Point poses an interesting question: what if Hitler had been assassinated early on in World War II and Nazi Germany came under control of a new regime? CDV Software Entertainment and Digital Reality present gamers with an alternate history by blending WWII history with science fiction in both single player campaigns as well as extensive multiplayer modes.

• In order run physics effects on your PC today, you typically have to use the CPU, regardless of the platform you rely on. IBM's Xenon & Broadway, Sony Cell, Intel Core or AMD Phenom - all of these CPUs, however, have not yet shown that they can be capable physics drivers, so, in our opinion, specialized physics accelerators will be the solution for the future. Even at Intel there is Larrabee, which is designed to become an all-purpose accelerator chip that is used for graphics as well as ray-tracing and physics, according to sources close to company. The second part of the equation is the development of next-generation game engines, which are going to drive implementation of real-world physics with next-generation consoles and PCs. Let's look the public statements made in regards to the Nvidia-Ageia deal: Nvidia released a following statement from Jen-Hsun Huang, co-founder and CEO: "The AGEIA team is world class, and is passionate about the same thing we are - creating the most amazing and captivating game experiences. By combining the teams that created the world's most pervasive GPU and physics engine brands, we can now bring GeForce-accelerated PhysX to hundreds of millions of gamers around the world." Manju Hegde, co-founder and CEO of Ageia, released the following statement: "Nvidia is the perfect fit for us. They have the world's best parallel computing technology and are the thought leaders in GPUs and gaming." True or not, the two statements refer to the present situation. But this deal was all about the future and controlling (or at least balancing) the world of physics computing, which set to march beyond the domain of games. Based on these statements, you might think that all currently-shipped GeForce products support PhysX, while the truth is that PhysX will be implemented in future chips, destined to be shipped in the hundreds of millions. Suddenly there is a pretty good reason for developers and publishers to jump on PhysX immediately. Following the acquisition yesterday, we had the chance to talk to Tim Sweeney, founder of Epic Games and the brain behind the Unreal engine. Sweeney said that "we've had a great relationship with the Ageia team for years, and bundle their PhysX library with Unreal Engine 3 as its standard physics solution." He added that he was "happy to see Nvidia jump in and throw its massive weight behind physics." Sweeney mentioned that he is planning to use Ageia physics features with "future Unreal Engine 3 games on all platforms." The "all platforms" note is particularly interesting. Hidden away from the eyes of public, engineers are creating next-generation Xbox, next-gen PlayStation and next-gen Wii titles. We managed to find out that all creative spirits of these projects are now hidden in caves, working hard on getting the new silicon for future parts. You can expect that new wave of consoles comes will come to market in the 2010/11 timeframe, even though conservative estimates are talking about 2012 at this point. But, clearly, Nvidia's mention of "hundreds of millions of gamers" was a signal for the IT industry as whole. It will be driven in all major graphics application markets. When it comes to PC itself, Nvidia has several plans, seen in this author's 2nd grade MSPaint skills in the picture above. The future is in physics being rendered on Nvidia's integrated chipsets and graphics cards. The key to this strategy is not to think just about Intel or AMD processors, but a bit wider than that. If we are listening to the "rumors that could be true" department, we should to pay attention to the next-generation Sony console, which may integrate physics capability directly into Nvidia's GPU, which reportedly is not going to be the last-minute patchwork Nvidia had to deliver with the PS3 RSX GPU. What makes this deal a sensible solution is the fact that Ageia has the engineers to take advantage of Nvidia's future hardware. You can bet the farm on the fact that future GPUs will have substantial input from Ageia's staff in terms of effectively channeling: Current GPUs have a deadly flaw in GPGPU terms - there are substantial performance penalties when branching is used. At the other hand, CPU and PPU excel in branching, because there is enough cache to put "what-if" instructions and correctly predict what could happen. Intel knew that and is building Larrabee with massive cache in the middle, while Nehalem, Westmere and Sandy Bridge will continue to increase the overall amount of cache, while re-introducing Hyper-Threading, enabling up to 16 threads on a single socket. It is too early to say what will be the first GPU influenced by Ageia's engineers, but we expect that some influence might already be seen in the high-end graphics chip coming in 2009.