Wednesday 9 November 2011

The NVIDIA Blog

The NVIDIA Blog

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Tegra 3 Struts its Stuff in Glowball Part 2 Demo

Posted: 08 Nov 2011 09:33 PM PST

Welcome to the world of mobile graphics technology demos, where we get to push the limits of what's possible on next-gen games.

In this new demo, we use Tegra 3's four CPU cores and its new GeForce GPU to render an interactive environment with real-time dynamic lighting, real-time physics, fluid gameplay and more.

So let's cut to the chase. What you see below is the new "Glowball Part 2" demo, showing off the upcoming Glowball game running on a Tegra 3 device.

You may remember our original Glowball Part 1 demo and the game-changing graphics power of Tegra 3. This time around, Glowball Part 2 is set completely underwater to demonstrate real-time "caustics" effects – the shifting light you see at the bottom of a swimming pool as light is refracted through the water.

This demo takes mobile graphics performance to a new level, with roughly 300 simulated kelp plants and over 1,400 other moving plants scattered across the sea floor. Factor in the schools of fish with reflective scales and various other animal life, and the resulting geometry in this level reaches nearly two million rendered triangles.

We also added in a split screen mode, so you can see how mobile gaming with Tegra 3-powered realistic graphics looks like compared to previous generation devices.

Better yet, you won't have to wait too much longer until you can actually run to your local gadget purveyor to buy a Tegra 3 device. The first tablet with Tegra 3 will be available before the end of the year. Stay tuned for more details.

Check it out!

We have even more Tegra 3 coverage at the blog posts below:

Developers Bring Next-Gen Games To Tegra 3 Mobile Devices

Posted: 08 Nov 2011 09:33 PM PST

Ever wonder how great games are made? Ever wonder what developers look for when they choose a platform to develop on?

Look no further.

The developers of Riptide, Shadowgun and Bladeslinger – just to name a few – show off some gameplay footage and explain how they are ushering in the next wave of mobile games using Tegra 3.

Check it out!

We have even more Tegra 3 coverage at the blog posts below:

Ninja Core: Tegra 3 Demonstrates 5th CPU Core’s Low-Power Prowess

Posted: 08 Nov 2011 09:33 PM PST

You've already heard about the five CPU cores in Tegra 3 – four high-performance cores and one low-power companion core – so we thought it's about time we showed you a demo of the fifth "Ninja Core" in action.

We've put together this simple video to show you how the low-power Ninja Core gets along with its higher-performance CPU brethren core while viewing pictures, watching videos, web browsing and gaming.

The Ninja Core doesn't require any custom apps to take advantage of its power savings. None of the apps you see below were rewritten to take advantage of Tegra 3's architecture – it just works.

Check out the video below. Seeing is believing.

We have even more Tegra 3 coverage at the blog posts below:

Path to Exascale Computing Rests with Heterogeneous Design

Posted: 08 Nov 2011 03:48 PM PST

We are heading into the Supercomputing 2011 (SC'11) conference next week. The high performance community is driving hard towards building extreme scale supercomputers with the next big milestone set at building an exaflop supercomputer – that's roughly the performance of 70 million laptops put together. These "exascale" supercomputers are essential to drive innovation in science and technology.

In a freshly published report, industry analyst firm IDC argues that the fastest path to this exaflop milestone is through heterogeneous designs. They state that x86 processors will not be enough to meet the performance and power goals that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has outlined – 1,000 times faster than the current petaflop systems and 50-100 times more energy efficient. Given the daunting challenges of cost, power consumption, application performance and space, IDC concludes that heterogeneous systems offer the best solution to achieve exascale performance.

IDC analysts Earl Joseph and Steve Conway write, "IDC believes that heterogeneous computing will be indispensable for achieving exascale computing in this decade."

Their report, entitled "Heterogeneous Computing: A New Paradigm for the Exascale Era," is available here as a PDF document.

The DOE has a stated goal to achieve exascale performance by the end of the decade, but the U.S. isn't alone in its desire to reach this threshold. China, Russia, Japan and the European Union are all racing toward the same goal, because of the tremendous the scientific, industrial and economic benefits these extreme scale supercomputers will provide. We're not just talking about theoretical science. Imagine the economic advantages accruing to the country that develops safe, non-polluting fusion reactors, in terms of prosperity, national security and job opportunities.

Exascale systems, the DOE believes, will enable it to research cars that use less fuel, develop clean and abundant fusion power, mitigate global warming and even develop cures for diseases like cancer and diabetes.

And like the space race of the 1960's, there will be hundreds or thousands of technological dividends that filter down from such research.  And just like the space race, there is a race on to get to the next level of supercomputing.

Oak Ridge National Laboratories (ORNL) has thrown down the first gauntlet in this exascale race by announcing their intention to build a 20 petaflop heterogeneous supercomputer accelerated by NVIDIA Tesla GPUs.
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