The NVIDIA Blog | |
- NVIDIA Completes $1.5M Strategic Investment in Rocketick
- Sprint’s Photon 4G Joins Tegra Super Phone Family
- NVIDIA at E3 2011 – Day 2 Developer Interviews
- China’s Investment in GPU Supercomputing Begins to Pay Off Big Time!
- Hail to a King?
| NVIDIA Completes $1.5M Strategic Investment in Rocketick Posted: 09 Jun 2011 10:11 AM PDT In the latest initiative under NVIDIA's GPU Ventures Program, which aims to help GPU technology startups get off the ground, I'm pleased to announce that we've invested $1.5M in Rocketick – a pioneer in GPU-based simulation acceleration for chip verification. This is part of the Israel-based company's latest round of fundraising, which brought in $2.5 million. We believe strongly enough in this startup that we've also licensed its software for our own chip designs. Using Rocketick's software accelerator, which leverages Tesla GPU’s, we'll be able to verify our chip designs up to 50-times faster than current in-house solutions. Our strategic investment was initially disclosed last week at GTS Israel 2011, an event focused on emerging companies utilizing GPU technology, which had more than 350 attendees, 15 sponsors and 20 speakers. With this investment, Rocketick will bring its chip verification technology to enterprises looking to deploy more GPUs in server farms tasked with chip design and verification. This investment will also create additional revenue opportunity for CUDA-enabled GPU’s. We have been working with Rocketick over the past year and this partnership marks our first equity investment in an Israeli startup. In an industry where the complexity of simulating a chip grows exponentially, its technology is critically important. |
| Sprint’s Photon 4G Joins Tegra Super Phone Family Posted: 09 Jun 2011 10:06 AM PDT Today, Motorola and Sprint introduced the Photon 4G, as the first Tegra-powered super phone on Sprint's 4G network. This big-screened multimedia monster boasts a 4.3 qHD high-resolution (960×540) multitouch display, metal kickstand, HDMI-output support, an impressive 1 GB of RAM and Android 2.3 Gingerbread OS. The Photon 4G takes mobile computing and entertainment to another level. Sure, you can surf the web, check email and even stream HD video from YouTube and any video-streaming websites using Adobe's Flash technology. But, it's the Sprint Photon 4G's ability to play optimized, console-quality games from Tegra Zone (which you can find in the Sprint Zone) that makes this Tegra 2-powered handset a veritable gaming console in your pocket. Thanks to the NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core processor and GeForce GPU, the Photon 4G is capable of running multi-platform, console-class Android OS games with the kind of experience you expect from a game console. You can play games on the handset itself, or use HDMI-out to play the game on a big-screen TV. But, it doesn't end there. You can connect Bluetooth game controllers like the Nintendo Wii’s Wiimote to play Tegra Zone games, like Riptide GP, with the tactile feedback that only gaming controllers can deliver. At work (hopefully on your lunch break), simply prop the phone against integrated kickstand, kick up your feet and play games on the high-res qHD display. How about at home? Well, you can turn the Photon 4G into a gaming console. With HDMI-out and a Bluetooth controller (like the Wii game controller), you can get your game on with Riptide GP on your HDTV. It's all about options, and the Photon 4G offers them in spades. The video below demonstrates Bluetooth game controller support on the Photon 4G. A quick recap of the Photon 4G:
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| NVIDIA at E3 2011 – Day 2 Developer Interviews Posted: 09 Jun 2011 09:42 AM PDT Day Two of E3 2011 has come and gone, and we came away with some great interviews with game developers for you. Today was more frenzied than Day One, with the convention center more packed with attendees. But fear not. We managed to wade through the masses to bring you interviews with the makers of Star Wars The Old Republic, Battlefield 3 and World of Tanks. Your inner fan-boy can thank us later. First up is Star Wars The Old Republic. We found game developer Bioware in their impressively designed portion of the EA booth and got them to spill on what makes SWTOR so unique compared to other MMOs. As you'll see below, the computer graphic cinematic for SWTOR was absolutely gorgeous. Next, we fought our way to the Battlefield 3 section of EA's booth to get the scoop on the game from the game's developer, DICE. The audio tracks blasting throughout the booth simulated what we have to imagine are the sounds of a live battlefield. We somehow managed to film an interview amidst the aural chaos of the Battlefield 3 booth. Our last interview of the day features a unique game called World of Tanks – a hybrid game that is basically a mash up of MMO, FPS and straight up tank action. Developers like Wargaming.net are really doing right by the community with a game like World of Tanks. The game is free to play with premium versions offering you the option to fast-track your way to dominating your opponent in 1 of over 200 tanks. And, as if that wasn't enough, Wargaming setup a fully functional tank right on the show floor. So, that's Day 2 in a nutshell. We'll have even more great stuff lined up for you tomorrow. Make sure to stay tuned to our blog, Facebook and Twitter for cool PC specific content and show coverage.
Star Wars The Old Republic Battlefield 3 World of Tanks |
| China’s Investment in GPU Supercomputing Begins to Pay Off Big Time! Posted: 09 Jun 2011 09:00 AM PDT When the National Supercomputing Center in Tianjin, China, announced that they built Tianhe-1A — the world's fastest supercomputer based on NVIDIA Tesla GPUs — there were a lot of folks who questioned whether this system was just a stunt machine or a true deep investment in science and technology. Well, it looks like GPU supercomputers, like the Tianhe-1A, are just a small part of the investments that China is making in science and technology sectors – especially the high-performance computing (HPC) space. Tianhe-1A has proven today that it's more than just a record-breaking machine – it's a true scientific tool. Scientists at the Institute of Process Engineering (IPE) at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) today announced a record-breaking scientific simulation on the Tianhe-1A GPU supercomputer that furthers their research in solar energy. CAS-IPE scientists ran a complex molecular dynamics (MD) simulation on all 7,168 NVIDIA Tesla GPUs to achieve a performance of 1.87 petaflops per second – that's about the same performance as 130,000 laptops. These scientists are simulating the structure of crystalline silicon which is used in solar panels and also in the semiconductor industry. And they were able to accomplish this world's fastest MD simulation by writing just 2,000 lines of CUDA code.
 The Tianhe-1A supercomputer. Powered by NVIDIA Tesla GPUs. Some technical facts for the scientists among you (everyone else can safely skip this paragraph):
China wants to expand their economy from being manufacturing-based to also focusing on product design. Supercomputing enables better science and engineering, which in turn leads to higher quality product design along with faster manufacturing, and reduced costs. Policy makers in China realize that supercomputing is a fundamental tool in the global competition for economic growth, and are pursuing GPU-based supercomputers to realize their goals. This record-breaking simulation of the materials used in solar panels is just a first step. We'll keep you posted on the next giant leaps in GPU supercomputing.
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| Posted: 08 Jun 2011 06:39 PM PDT Carmack. Sweeney. Cliffy B. Gabe Newell. Will Wright. Shigeru Miyamoto. Cevat Yerli. And even, John Romero. In my 15 years working in the gaming industry these are the game developers whose names have been revered, heralded and extoled. And deservedly so – they are all great minds in gaming. But one guy that never gets mentioned in this crowd is a developer I first met at a wrap-up dinner for one of our Editor's Days many years ago. I spotted a nerdy-looking guy quietly holding court in the corner, deck of cards in hand. I made my way over and discovered a likeable guy with a great sense of humor and a very approachable demeanor. He engaged everybody that came by: our CEO, his competition, the waiter and even me, the PR guy. Regardless of stature or status, everybody got to pick a card or have a coin pulled from their ear. He wasn't doing it to draw attention to himself. He was doing it because it was fun for him, and funny for the folks that happened by. He even showed me how to do a few tricks, not to spoil the magician's secrets, but to pass on his craft (which thrilled my kids and their friends as toddlers). I remember thinking to myself, "This is a genuinely nice guy." It may be this likeable personality and unwillingness to draw attention to himself that causes this guy to miss out on all of the "gaming's greatest minds" lists that have been complied, despite having a resume that would stack up to almost anybody's. His work includes creating or porting titles for AAA franchises such as HalfLife, CounterStrike, Brothers in Arms, Borderlands, and Halo: Combat Evolved. Under his watch, this development house has used a wide variety of game engines to create games, including RenderWare, Bungie’s Halo, Unreal 2 and Unreal 3 and others. They have completed games on a ton of game platforms, including the PC, Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, Xbox, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii and Microsoft Windows. He doesn't carry himself with an air of status. He doesn't have an entourage or wear leather pants. He doesn't list his name as part of a game's title. He just makes fun games, and I think he is horribly underappreciated as a game developer. So, as we approach the 13-year anticipated release of Duke Nukem Forever, I say put Randy Pitchford on your list. I'm betting that Duke Nukem Forever kicks ass and chews bubble gum….and Randy Pitchford is all out of gum. |
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