Nvidia’s acquisition of Ageia in 2008 was a strategic move to boost the marketability of its GPU offerings. With the discontinuation of the dedicated PhyX boards, the acceleration moved to the GeForce GPU as a differentiation factor that set it apart from AMD’s ATI cards.
If a PhysX game detected the presence of an Nvidia GPU, it would move the hardware physics to the video card. Without an Nvidia board, the physics would hit the CPU, which in all cases is slower than what a GPU can do.
It’s expected that Nvidia would like to do everything it can to distance itself from the CPU and the GPUs of its competitors, but closer looks at the PhysX software implementation have shown that there could be some shadiness going on.
An excellent investigation by David Kanter at Real World Technologies found that Nvidia’s PhysX software implementation for use by CPUs still uses x87 code, which has been deprecated by Intel in 2005 and now has been fully replaced by SSE. Intel supported SSE since 2000, and AMD implemented it in 2003.
The x87 code is slow, ugly, and remains supported on today’s modern CPU solely for legacy reasons. In short, there is no technical reason for Nvidia to continue running PhysX on CPUs using such terrible software when moving to SSE would speed things considerably – unless that would make the GeForce GPGPU look less mighty compared to the CPU.
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Tag: NVIDIANVIDIA – We are aware that some customers have reported fan speed issues with the latest 196.75 WHQL drivers on NVIDIA.com. Until we can verify and root cause this issue, we recommend that customers stay with, or return to 196.21 WHQL drivers.
Release 196.75 drivers have been temporarily removed from our website. Thanks, and stay tuned for updates.
Tweet from nVidia
Apologies for the confusion around our most recent GF100 update. To clarify, launch date for GeForce GTX 480 and GTX 470 is March 26, 2010.
Optimus works by automatically shutting off the graphics card in a computer when it isn’t in use. For instance, if a computer user is surfing the Web or checking e-mail, Optimus will turn the card off, letting the chipset attached to the computer’s main processor deal with these simpler tasks.
When a user decides to watch a movie, Optimus flips the chip on to deal with the larger data load. By shutting off the graphics card, Optimus could potentially increase battery life five-fold.
Previously, users would have to manually turn off the graphics chip, interrupting whatever programs had been running.
Optimus is expected to be included with an upcoming line of notebooks from Asustek Computer Inc later this year.
For a limited time only, get Batman: Arkham Asylum FREE with any qualifying NVIDIA® GeForce® Graphics Card!
Click on one of the participating eTailers below to shop for qualified products:
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Get the definitive version of Batman: Arkham Asylum with NVIDIA® 3D Vision™ technology support and enhanced GPU-accelerated NVIDIA® PhysX® effects. For a limited time only, purchase a qualifying GeForce GTX 260, GeForce GTX 275 or GeForce GTX 285 graphics card and receive a coupon good for the digital download of Batman Arkham Asylum, PC version.
This coupon is valid between Sept 15, 2009 through December 31, 2009 or while supplies last. Terms and conditions apply. See terms and conditions for details.
That’s a new technology in Windows 7 that lets applications tap the power of graphics processors to accelerate performance, giving the system processor a boost. It sounds really promising, but so did ReadyBoost for Vista and it never seemed to take off.
Nvidia today announced that it’s the first manufacturer of graphics processing units to get Microsoft’s DirectCompute driver certification. People running Windows 7 with a GeForce GPU can download the driver (Version 190.62) from Nvidia later today.
Today, NVIDIA officially announced the GeForce GTX 275 mid-range video card, the latest addition to its performance GPU lineup. With the goal of being the best bang for your buck graphics card on the market, the GTX 275 offers a combination of performance, physics, and GPU computing power for budget conscious consumers. Interested? Check out a few highlights:
* 633 MHz GPU Clock
* 1404 MHz Shader Clock
* 1134 MHz Memory Clock
* 240 Processor Cores
* 80 Texture Processing Units
* 448-bit Memory Interface
* 896 MB GDDR3 memory
Palit releases the first and the only custom designed GeForce® GTX285 1GB and 2GB
Palit Microsystems, leading graphics card manufacturer, announces the first own design GeForce® GTX285 1GB and 2GB. Armed with NVIDIA PhysX® and NVIDIA CUDA® technology, the GeForce® GTX285 series are ready to enable a total new class of physical gaming interaction!
Palit GTX 285 2GB is the first and the only one graphics card available in the market. The Palit GeForce® GTX285 1GB and 2GB feature a core speed of 648MHz and 2.5GHz on its GDDR3 memory with a 512bit interface. It supports the latest NVIDIA PhysX® technology providing real-time physics simulations in leading edge PC and console games. With up to 50% more performance than prior generation GPUs, GeForce® GTX 285’s GPUs tear through complex DirectX® 10 environments and cinematic effects at blazing frame rates in extreme HD resolution!
Palit innovative dual fan cooling system for the GTX 285 series comes with two PWM fans and four heat-pipes to provide high performance and trustworthy cooling solution. Conceived for two GPUs, the two PWM fans are able to provide sufficient air flow to cool GPU on the graphics quietly. The PWM fan created for both fans can adjust the fan speed depending on the GPU’s temperature. Palit’s GeForce® GTX285 also supports NVIDIA CUDA® technology, unlocking the power of the GPU’s processing cores to accelerate the most demanding system tasks (such as video transcoding) to deliver up to 20x the performance over traditional CPUs.
Nvidia ForceWare for XP 32-Bit 169.09 Beta
* Beta driver for GeForce 6, 7, and 8 series GPUs.
* Recommended driver for Crysis.
* Several game and application compatibility fixes. Please read the release notes for more information on product support, features, driver fixes and known compatibility issues.
* Users without English US operating systems can select their language and download the International driver here.