Interview: Bigfoot's Killer NIC, Exposed
Since its release, the Killer NIC has garnered a reputation for being an extravagant and largely unnecessary add-on for the do-it-yourselfer. Seeking additional insight, we approached the card's designer. Read More
- Microsoft's Surface PC Almost Ready To Play
- Vadim Launches 9800 GX2 And 9800 GTX Modular Waterblocks
- Microsoft Research Projects Go Google
- Is Simulation The Ultimate Way To Compress Music Files?
- Graphics Card Makers Introduce GeForce 9800 GTX Series
- Intel To Develop Integrated Connectivity I/O System For Mobile Devices
- Blu-ray Prices Continue To Climb
- Intel Shows Off Massive Two-billion Transistor Tukwila And...
- VIDEO - Bangkok International Motor Show Press Day Spectacle
- Apple Sued Over "millions Of Colors" Claim In IMac Ads
People "probably Won't" Need Discrete Graphics Cards Anymore - Intel
Source: Tom's Hardware US – Category : Miscellaneous 0 comment
Shanghai (China) - The days of discrete graphics cards are coming to an end, according to an Intel representative we talked to at the Shanghai Intel Developer Forum. Ron Fosner, an Intel Graphics and Gaming Technologist and former video game programmer, told TG Daily that multi-core CPUs will put an end to multi-GPU madness and that people "probably won’t need" discrete cards in the future.
Fosner made these comment while demonstrating Intel’s ’Smoke’ demo at the Technology Showcase at IDF. We posted a short version of the demo a few days ago. Today we went back to get some more detailed answers.
The demo is actually an incomplete demo that was supposed to simulate fire fighters putting out a raging inferno. "We didn’t put in the fire fighters yet," said Fosner. So instead of triumphant fire fighters, Intel chose to rain fiery destruction onto a house comprised of thousands of individual pieces, all simulated on a Nehalem 4-core, 2 threads per core, processor.
Nothing is pre-baked in this demo and the meteors don’t land in the same spot on each run. Lucky for us, Fosner managed to smash a meteor through the front porch of the shack. He explained that the demo then procedurally simulated fire as a particle emitter system with bounding boxes. When the particles hit a tree branch bounding box, the branch then becomes an emitter itself.
The demo also simulated animals like deer and rabbits running around on the ground. Dozens of birds are also flying around. Threads are devoted to creature AI and the animals try to run away, sometimes unsuccessfully, from the flames. Multi-core systems could lead to more realistic crowd animations and better weather and environment effects, according to Fosner.
Fosner told us that multi-core CPUs are more than capable of rendering complex scenes that used to be reserved for top-end graphics cards. He argued that Intel processors offered "more bang for the buck" and that it was more economical to go from single to multiple core processors versus popping multiple graphics cards into a machine. "The fact of the matter is that you’re going to have one graphics card, you may have a dual graphics card, but you’re not going to have a four graphics card or eight graphics card system," said Fosner.
Another advantage to CPU graphics and physics programming is that people won’t need to continually keep up with the latest programming techniques of all the newest cards - this means futzing around with shader models and DirectX programming will be a thing of the past. Fosner said that "everybody" knows how to program for a CPU and that this new way of programming will "get rid of" a path of graphics obsolescence.
When asked if discrete graphics cards will be needed in the future, Fosner answered, "Probably not". He explained that computer didn’t have discrete graphics in the 80s and that CPUs are becoming powerful enough to take over that role.
-
Previous News Article
Microsoft's Surface PC Almost Ready... -
Next News Article
Hynix Encounters Issue With 66 Nm...
React! Return to news index
- Chartered Extends Technology Development Collaboration With IBM To 22 Nm
- Hynix Encounters Issue With 66 Nm DRAM Production
- People "probably Won't" Need Discrete Graphics Cards Anymore - Intel
- Microsoft's Surface PC Almost Ready To Play
- Vadim Launches 9800 GX2 And 9800 GTX Modular Waterblocks
- Microsoft Research Projects Go Google