Intro CG @ NCSU

Opp: SV Application Deadline February 13!!!

2012-02-13T11:00:00.001-05:00

Hey folks,

Last day to apply to attend siggraph as a volunteer. SIGGRAPH is the premier graphics event. Highly recommended.

Best,

Ben

Benjamin Watson
Director, Design Graphics Lab | Associate Professor, Computer Science, NC State Univ.

919-513-0325 | designgraphics.ncsu.edu | @dgllab

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: <Mikki_Rose@siggraph.org>
Date: Sun, Feb 12, 2012 at 1:40 PM
Subject: SV Application Deadline February 13!!!
To: bwatson@ncsu.edu

Hello alumni! The SIGGRAPH 2012 Student Volunteer Program application deadline is rapidly approaching and we're asking for your help! All SV applications must be completed by Monday, 13 February 2012, 22:00 UTC/GMT (note, that is 2:00pm PST). If you or any students you know are applying would you please help spread the word about this deadline? If applications are started but still incomplete by that time they will not be considered for the program. Thank you so much for your help, we appreciate it!

Think they need some inspiration? Please feel free to share this video created by the SV Subcommittee, it's sure to get students red-diculously pumped!

Thank you again for your help, and good luck to your and your student friends!

~Mikki

Find: WebGL Playground

2012-01-27T15:43:00.001-05:00

WebGL Playground

GameDev News

WebGL playground is a straightforward idea: type in your WebGL script and see the results. But the cool part is that the editor and the results are just on the same page and that you get a handful of features that make your life easier.

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Find: New Book: SketchUp for Game Design

2012-01-24T00:28:00.001-05:00

An alternative to 3ds and maya?

New Book: SketchUp for Game Design

Google SketchUp

I’ve yet to meet a SketchUp modeler who doesn’t—at least just a little bit—want to work in the video game design industry. I get a stupid grin on my face when I think about how much fun it it would be to make battle tanks and exploding oil drums and secret doors for hidden basements full of zombies. In the gaming world, boring things like gravity and cost take a backseat to novelty and sheer coolness.

But how to turn your SketchUp habit (and job cranking out toilet stall details) into days full of armor design and wandering through bad neighborhoods looking for interesting photo-textures to shoot?

Google SketchUp for Game Design is Robin de Jongh’s newest book; he also wrote SketchUp 7.1 for Architectural Visualization. It presumes that you’re a SketchUp beginner, but then quickly gets on to the good stuff:

Finding good resources for photo-textures
Using Meshlab to convert your models in useable 3D game assets
Working with the Unity 3D game engine (which is widespread, free-or-low-cost middleware for designing game levels)
Creating high-quality textures for games
Adapting your models for use in video games
Authoring custom levels
Modeling low-poly game assets (including cars) and selling them online

Robin’s writing is accessible and easy to follow. He packs a lot of information into each page, but manages to keep the tone friendly and even funny at times. While the book’s in black and white, color versions of the images are available from the publisher’s website.

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist

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Find: The Best of CES 2012

2012-01-17T22:27:00.001-05:00

Quadhd & very high res tabs (~2500).

The Best of CES 2012

AnandTech

CES is all wrapped up and everyone is back home, and one of the questions I’ve been asked repeatedly by friends and family is, “What was the coolest thing you saw at CES this year?” Now, keep in mind that I am only one person and I didn’t even see a fraction of the show floor, as there were plenty of meetings set up around Vegas, so this is just my perspective on the coolest technology trends at the show. You’ll also notice that there’s a common thread in what really impressed me, but this is a highly subjective topic so take it for what it’s worth: one man’s opinion. What three things impressed me most at CES this year? Read on to find out.

Find: Color filtering Van Gogh

2012-01-13T21:33:00.001-05:00

Via former lab member Alex Kuhl. Interesting color deficiency study applied to van gogh.

Best, Ben

---------- Forwarded message ----------

Posted this to my Twitter feed, but thought I'd send this along to you guys in case you don't catch it on there.

http://asada0.tumblr.com/post/11517603099/the-day-i-saw-van-goghs-genius-in-a-new-light

Find: PowerVR Series 6 mobile GPUs announced: five times more efficient, 20 times more powerful

2012-01-11T03:02:00.001-05:00

New mobile gpu from the competitor using a rasterization alternative.

PowerVR Series 6 mobile GPUs announced: five times more efficient, 20 times more powerful

Imagination Technologies, the guys who design the graphics cores inside many modern smartphones, are today announcing that the next generation of their PowerVR GPU is ready to be licensed out. The PowerVR Series 6 is starting off with two core designs, the G6400 and G6200, but will continue to expand into "a growing family." Imagination claims the sixth generation of its graphics core can deliver "20x or more" the performance of current-gen hardware, while also being five times more efficient. That's thanks to producing the highest GFLOPS both per mW and per square millimeter.

The maximum computational performance is said to "reach the teraFLOPS range," though it's not entirely clear whether either of the particular core designs...

Find: JVC introduces GY-HMQ10 handheld 4K camcorder, available in March for $4,995

2012-01-11T02:38:00.001-05:00

Quadhd content gets cheaper

JVC introduces GY-HMQ10 handheld 4K camcorder, available in March for $4,995

JVC just announced a handheld 4K camcorder that it claims is the first of its kind in the world. The GY-HMQ10, as it is known, features a 1/2-inch CMOS sensor with a staggering 8.3 million pixels. Video is recorded at a native resolution of 3840 x 2160 with frame rate options including 24p, 50p, and 60p. Even more impressive, the company's high-speed Falconbrid LSI chip allows 4K images to be mirrored on a projector or external monitor with nary a hint of lag. From there, JVC says that up to two hours of compressed 4K video may be stored on a suitable high-capacity SDHC card. The GY-HMQ10 officially launches today, with availability expected in March at an MSRP of $4,995.

Find: PlayStation 4 won't appear at E3 2012, says Sony's Kaz Hirai

2012-01-10T22:45:00.001-05:00

No ps4 any time soon.

PlayStation 4 won't appear at E3 2012, says Sony's Kaz Hirai

The raw power of our video game home consoles are falling behind the PC, but Sony says it doesn't have any plans to launch a new, full-sized PlayStation 4 at E3 2012. Sony's Kaz Hirai said the company won't be making any such announcements at the show, according to The Wall Street Journal. "Andy (House) is absolutely right in that we are not making any announcements at E3. I’ve always said a 10-year life cycle for PS3, and there is no reason to go away from that," he reportedly said, referencing an earlier denial by his colleague.

While we're pretty anxious to be blown away by some technological advancements (like hardware powerful enough to render games at a native 1080p), this sounds just like the company line. Sony's been saying...

Find: CES 2012: The Verge Preview

2012-01-05T21:31:00.001-05:00

Whats big at ces show: lte on wp7, Nokia marquee device, tegra3 asus transformer prime, 55" oled display (thin, high contrast), quadhd.

CES 2012: The Verge Preview

#more

Perhaps the greatest annual celebration of gadgets in the world, the 2012 International CES in Las Vegas is nearly upon us. Filled with everything from iPhone-controlled helicopters to televisions to water-cooled gaming PCs, there's quite literally something for everyone at the show. If you can't find it here, it's a safe bet you won't find it anywhere.
Of course, covering a show of this magnitude is no small feat. Over the course of the next week and a half, you'll see The Verge transform its entire operation into a mobile editorial and production studio as we migrate to Sin City for the most in-depth coverage of the show — from every angle imaginable — that you'll find anywhere. What can we expect to see at CES this year? Let's...

Continue reading…

Find: PlayStation Vita sales drop again in Japan, 3DS still going strong

2012-01-05T12:57:00.001-05:00

Sony's new portable reviewed well, but isn't selling well. I think it will, but the glory days of portables are over: phones are eating the low end.

PlayStation Vita sales drop again in Japan, 3DS still going strong

After a fairly dramatic drop in its second week, the PlayStation Vita's sales in Japan continue to decline. According to Media Create figures published by Japanese site 4gamer, the Vita sold 42,648 units in the week starting December 26th, taking fourth place in the hardware charts. The Nintendo 3DS, however, continued its run of strong sales with 197,952 systems sold and five of the top ten software titles. It's worth noting that sales for all current systems fell last week, with the 3DS's figures being less than half of the previous week's total, so it's perhaps unfair to single out the Vita. Nevertheless, with Sony's latest (and arguably greatest) being outsold by the PSP and 3DS in every full week since the launch weekend, it...

Continue reading…

Find: Four Radeon HD 7970s cooled with liquid nitrogen en route to crazy benchmark scores

2012-01-05T12:52:00.001-05:00

Sweet. What to do with this power? Only gaming I guess. Gaming may be the place where quad hd finds an early market.

Four Radeon HD 7970s cooled with liquid nitrogen en route to crazy benchmark scores

What do you get when you take four of the fastest single-GPU graphics cards on the market, add a little liquid nitrogen, connect them to two 1,200W power supplies, and crank them to 1.6GHz each? The answer is Andre's monstrous "quad seventy-nine seventy" rig, pictured above. The AMD Radeon HD 7970 cards already feature an impressive clock speed of 925 MHz, and while AMD has said they can be pushed safely over 1GHz, overclocking them by almost 75 percent will get you some truly staggering benchmark performance.

The quad-GPU setup scorched 3DMark Vantage with a P (performance) score of over 83,000 and GPU score of over 98,000, and grabbed 3DMark 11 P and X (extreme) scores of 32,728 and 17,432, respectively. If you need some real world...

Find: AMD Radeon HD 7970 Review: 28nm And Graphics Core Next

2012-01-02T00:03:00.001-05:00

First dx11 card, first 28nm card, first of new amd simd architecture.

Bottom line: new top of heap graphics, about 20% better than best nvidia.

Much better for compute than previous amds.

But not the big step that most new archs are.

Dx11 tidbits: incremental step. High granularity texture paging a la carmack. "target independent rasterization"? Stereo support.

Sent to you via Google Reader

AMD Radeon HD 7970 Review: 28nm And Graphics Core Next, Together As One

At AMD’s Fusion Developer Summit 2011 AMD announced Graphics Core Next, their next-generation GPU architecture. GCN would be AMD’s Fermi moment, where AMD got serious about GPU computing and finally built an architecture that would serve as both a graphics workhorse and a computing workhorse. With the ever increasing costs of high-end GPU development it’s not enough to merely develop graphics GPUs, GPU developers must expand into GPU computing in order to capture the market share they need to live well into the future.

At the same time, by canceling their 32nm process TSMC has directed a lot of hype about future GPU development onto the 28nm process, where the next generation of GPUs would be developed. In an industry accustomed to rapid change and even more rapid improvement never before have GPU developers and their buyers had to wait a full 2 years for a new fabrication process to come online.

All of this has lead to a perfect storm of anticipation for what has become the Radeon HD 7970: not only is it the first video card based on a 28nm GPU, but it’s the first member of the Southern Islands and by extension the first video card to implement GCN. As a result the Radeon HD 7970 has a tough job to fill, as a gaming card it not only needs to deliver the next-generation performance gamers expect, but as the first GCN part it needs to prove that AMD’s GCN architecture is going to make them a competitor in the GPU computing space. Can the 7970 do all of these things and live up to the anticipation? Let’s find out…

Find: Updated Smartphone & GPU Bench DBs Live!

2012-01-01T10:45:00.001-05:00

How anandtech tests, and their public benchmarks.

Updated Smartphone & GPU Bench DBs Live!

We've been running our public performance database tool, Bench, for a few years now. Bench allows you to have direct access to the performance data we use in our reviews, segmented according to product category. Today we have five major product categories in Bench: CPU, GPU, Smartphone, Mobile and SSDs.

CPU Bench is the longest running without significant changes. You can actually compare Intel's most recently released Sandy Bridge E CPU to an old Core 2 Duo E6550 from four years ago in a number of tests using the tool.

GPU Bench has always posed a more significant challenge. Drivers and test platforms change very frequently, which often precludes us from keeping a running tally of benchmarks similar to what we do on the CPU side. We used our Radeon HD 7970 review as the kicking off point for our brand new PCIe 3.0 testbed for GPUs going forward - a platform we hope to keep in place for at least the next 12 months. While all of this data is already in the 7970 review, if you want to do any head to head comparisons between GPUs you can now do so using our updated GPU Bench 2012 database. The previous version of the database (GPU Bench 2011) is still available.

Similarly, we've finally updated our Smartphone Bench database. Smartphone Bench 2011 features all of the tests and test data we've been using in our most recent smartphone reviews (e.g. Droid RAZR). We opted against calling it Smartphone Bench 2012 because we plan on updating some of the benchmarks in the new year (e.g. you may have seen one of our new battery life tests in our Eee Pad Transformer Prime Follow-up).

We are in the preliminary stages of planning AnandTech's site refresh for 2012, including updates to Bench. If you have any suggestions you'd like to see implemented, please feel free to leave them as comments here. We already have a number of ide...

Find: ViewSonic V3D231 3D Display - The Passive Approach

2012-01-01T10:40:00.001-05:00

On passive (no battery like movies) stereo, and how to test displays.

ViewSonic V3D231 3D Display - The Passive Approach

Almost all of us have gone to see a movie in 3D at the theaters at this point. Unlike most 3D designs at home, movie theaters use a passive 3D setup with polarized glasses that enable you to watch 3D without needing expensive, battery powered glasses.

Though the implementation is slightly different, passive 3D technology has started to come to the home as well, and the ViewSonic V3D231 is one of the first computer monitors to use it. Will the advantages of passive 3D outweigh the negatives in a PC environment? Find out as well as how the Viewsonic V3D231 fares in non-3D tasks in our full review.

Announcement: Grade of Final Exam

2011-12-19T20:30:00.001-05:00

Hi all,

I've updated the grading of the final exam, web blog posts, and reaction.
Pls check and let me know if you have any questions.

-Juhee

Announcement: Grade of Assignment 3

2011-12-18T20:53:00.002-05:00

Hi all,

I've updated the grading of assignment 3.
Pls check and let me know if you have any questions.

Final exam will be updated tomorrow late afternoon.

-Juhee

Announcement: Grade of Assignment 2 (for those who resubmitted)

2011-12-15T22:37:00.001-05:00

Hi all,

I've updated the grading of assignment 2 for those who resubmitted their work.
Pls check and let me know if you have any questions.

-Juhee

Announcement: Grade of Assignment 4

2011-12-14T03:19:00.004-05:00

Hi all,

I've updated the grade book for assignment 4.

I am waiting replies from the students who cannot check their grades for assignment 4.

Details as below:

average 117

median 117

max 150

first quartile 102.5

third quartile 128

Most of the students received 100 points and extra credits and the final points would be normalized.

I will try to update results for assignment 3 asap.

The grading of the final exam would be delayed until Dr.Watson comes back on 15th.

However, all the grading would be finished during the weekend.

Let me know if you have any further questions.

-Juhee

Announcement: reminder -- this is an open book exam!

2011-12-09T06:58:00.001-05:00

...and internet is allowed.

I enjoyed the semester, and hope you did too! Please do consider going on to 462.

Best,

Ben

Opp: SIGGRAPH 2012 Student Volunteers Program

2011-12-05T16:58:00.001-05:00

Hey folks,

SIGGRAPH is the leading graphics conference in the world, and volunteering is a great way to experience it on the cheap.

Best,

Ben

***

SIGGRAPH 2012 STUDENT VOLUNTEERS

DEADLINE IS FEBRUARY 13, 22:00 UTC/GMT. APPLY NOW!

Click here to visit the online application!

Are your students science? Are they art? Do they daydream of computations or calculate in creativity? If so, they will be right at home at SIGGRAPH 2012. Science and art will come together in one outstanding international conference to explore computer graphics and interactive techniques from both points of view, and THEY can be a part of it!

The SIGGRAPH 2012 Student Volunteer Program is a unique opportunity for students to meet people involved in all areas of the computer graphics industry while contributing to the overall success of the SIGGRAPH Conference. The industry's future leaders are encouraged to apply: students who demonstrate leadership, service, and a passion for computer graphics and interactive techniques.

As a Student Volunteer, students will go behind the scenes to help run an international event, which draws thousands of people who share a passion for advanced computer graphics technologies. The benefits of being a Student Volunteer extend beyond the free full admission conference pass to professional development and private Student Volunteer Special Sessions with top professionals who were once Student Volunteers themselves!

All of this is available to high school, undergraduate, and graduate students who are enrolled full time for at least one semester during the 2011-2012 academic year and are at least 18 years of age. Students can apply to volunteer for either 18 or 30 hours (approximately) during the conference. Volunteers who are willing to commit for at least 30 hours are eligible to apply for Travel Assistance Awards, which offer financial help for travel to and from the conference. The conference will run Sunday, 5 August through Thursday, 9 August, 2012 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. For more details on this wonderful opportunity, please check out: sv.siggraph.org

Thanks to partners in education like you, we have been able to promote the SIGGRAPH Student Volunteer Program to a greater number of students than ever before! Last year, a majority of our students heard about the SV Program through a teacher. We need your help again this year!

The Student Volunteer Subcommittee has compiled some promotional materials as we begin our search for hard-working, motivated students. The materials are available for download from our Online Documents. The files include:

SIGGRAPH 2012 SV Presentation -This 2012 Student Volunteer slideshow presentation (linked below) outlines some of the highlights of our program. Feel free to use this at the beginning of your class or hand-off to any student leaders in any relevant student clubs/organizations. https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=dgdwmtdv_89fv52hh3p

SV2012_banner.jpg - A static web banner that you can link to http://sv.siggraph.org/ on your home page.

Thank you and we hope to see you and your students in Los Angeles!

Mikki Rose
SIGGRAPH 2012 Student Volunteers Chair

Mikki_Rose@siggraph.org
sv.siggraph.org

P.S. I'm a hybrid!

Find: Interview with SIGGRAPH ASIA 2011 Speaker & Microsoft Researcher Bill Buxton

2011-12-03T16:52:00.001-05:00

Glad bill also thinks displays are a big part of the future of graphics. He's always been a leader in bringing the human element to the field.

Interview with SIGGRAPH ASIA 2011 Speaker & Microsoft Researcher Bill Buxton

Bill Buxton, a principal researcher for Microsoft Research, will be making a presentation during SIGGRAPH Asia. He recently got a chance to discuss his work.

Find: How to Overclock Your Video Card

2011-12-03T13:18:00.001-05:00

L

How to Overclock Your Video Card and Boost Your Gaming Performance [How To]

While it won't likely mean your old card can magically run the latest games on ultra settings, overclocking your video card is a solid way to eke a bit of extra gaming performance out of your computer. Here's a step-by-step guide on how to do it properly.

Overclocking—or running your video card at higher speeds than it runs by default—is a good way to boost the performance of your computer, but it isn't as simple as clicking a few "turbo" buttons and getting back to your game. Just like overclocking your computer's processor, overclocking a video card takes some patience, some stability testing, and carries a bit of a risk if not done properly. Thankfully, it isn't quite as involved as overclocking a processor, and it's probably the best way to increase your PC's gaming performance without actually buying new parts. Here's how it's done.

What You'll Need

Everyone has different opinions on what tools are the most effective for overclocking your video card, but I've found these tools strike a balance between ease of use, effectiveness, and safety:

A Windows machine. Our tutorial today is for Windows machines, since that's where the vast majority of gaming is done.

An NVIDIA or AMD video card. It doesn't matter which one; our method will work with nearly any video card out there.

An overclocking program like EVGA Precision or MSI Afterburner. Despite their names, neither requires an EVGA or MSI graphics card. They'll work with almost any video card out there, no matter the manufacturer. They're nearly identical programs, so it really doesn't matter which one you use (though we'll be using EVGA Precision in our examples, since it's what I use).

The Furmark video card stress test. Some people like to use ATITool, though I haven't found this to be quite as effective as Furmark.

Patience. Seriously, this is going to take awhile. Grab yourself a cup of tea.

Step One: Raise Your Clock Values

Find: Nvidia's GeForce GTX 560 Ti with 448 Cores hits sweet spot of price, performance, and potential

2011-12-02T21:32:00.001-05:00

New lower cost nvidia gpu.

Nvidia's GeForce GTX 560 Ti with 448 Cores hits sweet spot of price, performance, and potential

Despite the fact that Nvidia's found a way to make its naming scheme even more irritating — its new $289 GPU is actually called the "GeForce GTX 560 Ti with 448 Cores" — the card itself has been met with generally positive reviews from the likes of AnandTech and Tom's Hardware. The 560 Ti 448 is built on the 40nm GF110 GPU (Fermi), and inside it's got a 320-bit memory interface, 448 stream processors, 56 texture units, 40 ROPs, and a core clocked to 732MHz; in simpler terms, it's basically a slightly toned down version of the GeForce GTX 570 at a lower cost. The good news is that the 560 Ti 448 measures up well to the 570, with reviewers praising its general performance and overclocking potential, and the card also competes closely...

Announcement: in class assignment and game demos

2011-11-30T10:32:00.001-05:00

Folks,

Today we will host any of our optional game demos for game prizes. We will also make time in class to submit evaluations. Then we will work on a practice exam in class. Here is the practice exam, and the exam with answers.

I may not make it to class today (Our TA Ju Hee instead), so let me thank all of you for a fun semester, and I hope many of you move on to 461!

Just so you know what game prizes are available, we have the following vintage games. These are PC unless otherwise marked:

Command and Conquer Generals
Command and Conquer Collection
Need for Speed Collection
Kids Fun Pack (SimCity, Lego...)
SimCity 4
Sims Mega Deluxe (Basic plus 3 expansions)
Sims Hot Date expansion
Sims Superstar expansion
Sims Makin Magic expansion
NBA Live 06
PGA Tour 06
Need for Speed most wanted
Catwoman (hah!)
Harry Potter Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter Prisoner of Azkhaban
Sims 2 Nightlife expansion
Sim Mania 2 (City 2000, Golf, Coaster, Theme Park)
Need For Speed Underground
Need For Speed Underground 2
New World
Black & White Deluxe
Battlefield Vietnam
Lord of the Rings Two Towers (PS2)
Madden 03 (PS2)
EA Collection (SimCity 3000, Command & Conquer Red Alert 2, Lord of the Rings Return of the King, more)
Knockout Kings 02 (PS2)
Orange Box (XBox 360)
Battlefield 1942 (three games)
Tom Clancy Rainbow Six 3
Tomb Raider Angel of Darkness
MDK 2
Thief 2
Deus X
Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2
Freedom Fighters
SimCity 4
Madden 06
Fifa 06
Fifa 05
Madden 05
NHL 05
MVP Baseball 05
Sims 2
Sims Vacation expansion
Sims Unleashed expansion
NBA Live 05
PGA Tour 05
NHL 06

Find: Exascale - An Innovator’s Dilemma

2011-11-19T01:57:00.001-05:00

Nvidia CEO on the gpu as a disruptive transformative tech. A nice summary of gpu history.

Exascale refers to quintillion flops, or a billion gigaflops.

Exascale: An Innovator’s Dilemma

#more

NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang gave an electrifying opening keynote today at SC11, the annual gathering of the international supercomputing community, as it gears up for the industry’s next grand challenge: exascale computing.

He began his presentation by discussing Clayton Christensen, the Harvard Business School professor who literally wrote the book on innovation, The Innovator’s Dilemma. Christensen gave the keynote at last year’s event, SC10, where he shared the basic principles of his theory, which at its simplest states that disruptive technologies are not initially deemed valuable to the markets they eventually serve.

Disruptive technologies are typically cheaper, less advanced and spring from low-margin markets. By their nature, they fly in the face of the forces that govern large, established companies. And yet history is on their side. The steady progression of the computing industry – from mainframes to mini computers to workstations to PCs to today’s mobile devices – can be read as successive waves of disruptive innovation.

Huang described how Christensen’s model applies to the supercomputing industry and the processors at its core.

The limitations of power

This graph, shown during Jen-Hsun Huang’s SC11

keynote, shows the projected time to reach

exascale performance with and without

GPU technology.

For much of the past two decades, computer scientists were able to steadily improve the supercomputer performance by scaling out ever-larger CPU-powered systems. However, Huang argued that this approach has hit a wall. Due to the energy required to power them, it’s no longer practical to scale out CPU-only systems. And in the context of the exascale challenge, power is paramount. To achieve the goal of 1 exaflop at 20 megawatts by 2019, a CPU-only system would arrive more than 15 years late, in 2035. “Energy efficiency is our single greatest imperative,” said Huang.

Enter the GPU. While CPUs are comprised of a handful of cores optimized for linear tasks, GPUs are comprised of many cores optimized for parallel computing and are dramatically more ener...

Announcement: Last day of resubmitting hw2 and 3 - Dec. 12th.

2011-11-18T23:31:00.004-05:00

Hi all,

For those who are planning to resubmit hw2 and hw3, the last day of resubmission is Dec. 12th, Monday. Any assignments submitted after Dec. 12th will not be graded.

-Juhee

Find: John Carmack codes around patent to release Doom 3 source

2011-11-17T19:40:00.001-05:00

Shadows are part of our cg for games course.

John Carmack codes around patent to release Doom 3 source

Id Software's lawyers got a little uncomfortable about releasing the Doom 3 source code — a tradition at id — because of a small patent issue, but John Carmack saved the day by just coding around it. We're playing it a little fast and loose here, but the story is that between 1998 and 2000, both Carmack and Creative Labs independently developed a very similar method for rendering shadows in a 3D environment. Although the technique is commonly known as Carmack's Reverse, the patent went to Creative, so the lawyers understandably didn't want to get in trouble for open-sourcing somebody else's technology. However, the problem was apparently minor — according to a tweet from id's founder himself, it was solved by simply adding four...

Leader: Will Wright's HiveMind aims to turn humanity into The Sims — sort of

2011-11-16T20:33:00.001-05:00

Hmm. A data driven viz/social game?

Will Wright's HiveMind aims to turn humanity into The Sims — sort of

After a brief hiatus from the gaming industry — his last game was the ambitious-but-coolly-received Spore — legendary game designer and master of all things Sims Will Wright has announced HiveMind, the eponymous game from his new startup. And what exactly is HiveMind about? Well, that's tricky.

Wright spoke with VentureBeat and offered very little, in terms of concrete details. He did, however, talk about his aims and goals with this "personal gaming" venture. HiveMind is driven by data collection — the same kind of data we've shown willingness to give to the likes of Facebook, for example — and the game will thusly learn from that and guide you to discover new interesting and entertaining events in real life.

Wright said...

Homework: assignment 4, a simple game

2011-11-15T14:33:00.001-05:00

Folks,

Here is our final assignment, due the final day of class, with extended late policy. You can do a group assignment or a completely different game, but you have to confer with me first.

You can earn 100% fairly easily, but if you go further you can enter an optional competition for some vintage PC games, by demonstrating your game in class at semester end.

Best,

Ben

Announcement: workshop and extension on homework 3

2011-11-14T13:33:00.001-05:00

Folks,

Today is the deadline for the 27% penalty for homework 3. As for the first assignment, we will remove this deadline. You can continue to work on homework 3 until semester end, with the penalty remaining at 27%.

We will hold an in-class workshop on the coming Wednesday, in which Ju Hee and I will help you with any coding problems you may have. If you would like to take advantage of that workshop, please bring your laptops. If you don't feel you need for any help, feel free to skip Wednesday.

Also, I've had some questions about how extra credit works with these changes. You can submit extra credit on either assignment 2 or 3 at 27% off -- without harming your current marks, if you have already turned in either of these assignments. If you turn in new versions of functionality you've already turned in (regular or extra credit), this will be marked with a 27% penalty.

Best,

Ben

Find: more detail on mobile gpus

2011-11-12T16:09:00.001-05:00

ARM touts PlayStation 3 power in a mobile GPU

Chip designer ARM has announced its next generation mobile GPU, the Mali-T658. ARM boasts that the design will offer ten times the performance Mali-400 MP, found in, among other smartphones, the Samsung Galaxy S II.

The T658 is ARM's second GPU using an architecture it calls Midgard. Midgard is designed to support both 3D workloads using modern APIs—it supports both OpenGL ES and Microsoft's Direct3D 11—and computation workloads using OpenCL, Microsoft DirectCompute, and Google RenderScript. To aid with compute tasks, Midgard supports full IEEE 754 floating point.

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Find: ARM announces Mali-T658 GPU, claims ten times the graphical performance of today's smartphones

2011-11-12T15:25:00.001-05:00

The mobile gpu race just keeps getting hotter. Ps3 on mobiles in two years.

ARM announces Mali-T658 GPU, claims ten times the graphical performance of today's smartphones

We've only barely gotten accustomed to the performance of the Mali-T400 in our brand spanking new Samsung Galaxy S IIs, and here comes ARM with details of another next-gen GPU. The new Mali-T658 is an up-to-eight-core design that builds on the still-in-production Mali-T604, a next-gen chip itself, offering an estimated four times the compute power of that GPU and ten times the graphics performance of the existing Mali-T400, plus a promise to play nice with ARM's big.LITTLE architecture.

ARM's already envisioning PlayStation 3 quality games running on the final silicon when discussing it with the likes of BBC News, and though we've heard claims of console-quality graphics many a time before, it's hard not to be optimistic when...

Find: iOS and Android now have lion's share of mobile gaming revenues, not just playing time

2011-11-12T15:15:00.001-05:00

Nintendo has only a third of the market, sony less than one tenth.

iOS and Android now have lion's share of mobile gaming revenues, not just playing time

You won't be surprised to hear that most gaming on the move is now being done on smartphones, primarily of the iPhone and Android variety. What should raise an eyebrow, however, is the latest data from Flurry and the NPD Group that suggests those two platforms are now dominating in terms of revenue as well. 58 percent of income from portable game software during 2011, it asserts, came from iOS and Android devices, pushing the Nintendo DS family to a smallish 36 percent share and Sony's PSP to a Safari-like 6 percent of the total. Only two years ago, the two dedicated portable consoles commanded 81 percent of this revenue pie, which shows just how quickly consumers' habits can change.

The tepid launch of the Nintendo 3DS certainly hasn't...

Talk: Insomniac Games' Chad Dezern to Speak Tuesday, 11/15 @ 6pm in 1231 EB2

2011-11-10T14:05:00.001-05:00

Insomniac Games is known for Ratchet and Clank.

Here's the abstract:

Every project starts with big ideas and limitless optimism. Reality sets in during production; deadlines force scope changes, and great ideas end up on the cutting room floor. This presentation is about harnessing the excitement of the initial brainstorm. It’s about learning when to push, when to let go, and what to do to get as many great ideas as possible into a shipped game.

From: Ken Tate <tate@csc.ncsu.edu>

CSC Students, Faculty & Staff,

The NC State Department of Computer Science is very pleased to have Chad Dezern, NC Studio Director of Insomniac Games (creators of the Ratchet & Clank franchise), join us as the next featured speaker in the Fidelity Investments "Leadership in Technology" Executive Speakers Series on Tuesday, November 15th at 6 pm in Room 1231 EB2.

The title of his talk is "The Care and Feeding of Ideas" and an abstract is provided below.

The talk is free and open to the public, and ample free parking is available after 5 pm. Speaker bio and additional information available on the series web page.

Note to CSC Graduate Students - These lectures have been approved by the CSC Graduate Oversight Committee to count toward the required lectures for graduate students.

Note to CSC Undergraduates - Several of our professors and lecturers provide extra credit for attending the FI series talks; be sure to ask! I will be located down front after the talk to sign off on any required paperwork!

*****In addition, Julie Hentila of Fidelity Investment plans to be on hand before the talk (around 5:15 pm)

to speak with students about career opportunities! (intern & fulltime new grad hires)*****

Chad Dezern is the Studio Director at Insomniac Games’ studio in Durham, North Carolina. He oversees all aspects of creative development and content creation, most recently for Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One. Chad started in the games industry in 1995 as a production artist. He joined Insomniac in 1998. Chad was the Art Director for Resistance 2, Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty, and Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction. He was the Environment Art Director for Resistance: Fall of Man and Ratchet: Deadlocked. Before that he contributed production art to the Ratchet & Clank and Spryo the Dragon series. Chad serves on the Board of Directors for the Triangle Games Initiative and on the Advisory Board for North Carolina State’s Digital Games Research Center. He graduated from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 1994 with a B.F.A. in illustration.

This is our 3rd and final Fidelity Investments talk of the fall. We hope you will be able to join us.

Thanks,

Ken Tate

Follow NC State Computer Science on Twitter - @cscncsu and Facebook - csc.ncsu

Benjamin Watson
Director, Design Graphics Lab | Associate Professor, Computer Science, NC State Univ.

919-513-0325 | designgraphics.ncsu.edu | @dgllab

Nvidia Tegra 3: a 1.3GHz quad-core chip with five times the performance of Tegra 2

2011-11-09T20:13:00.001-05:00

Five times faster, less power

Nvidia Tegra 3 official: a 1.3GHz quad-core chip with five times the performance of Tegra 2

#more

It's been a long road since Kal-El's debut at MWC this February, but Nvidia's quad-core system-on-chip for mobile devices is finally ready for launch. The superhero codename is being replaced by the more logical Tegra 3 branding and the first host device has now been announced as Asus' Eee Pad Transformer Prime.

Tegra 3 promises to quintuple the performance of Tegra 2 with its four-core Cortex A9 arrangement while also tripling its graphical capabilities with a new 12-core graphics processor. That's a great deal of power for when you need it, but Nvidia has also added a fifth, low-power "companion core," whose role will be to keep things running during standby and other low-intensity modes. That core reaches a maximum speed of 500MHz...

Find: Ultimate Battlefield 3 Simulator

2011-11-08T17:09:00.001-05:00

Um, okay, that is awesome.

Via Christopher Healey.

---------- Forwarded message ----------

A tip from some students at UNC-CH. In case you haven't seen this YouTube video yet:

A game show in the UK built the ultimate Battlefield 3 simulator.

An enclosed igloo dome environment. 5-projector full surround HD video. Omnidirectional motorized treadmill so you can walk/run in 360-degrees at any speed to control your character. Infrared-tracking on a handheld gun to shoot. 800 LED lights to match the game's lighting. Kinects to track jumping and crouching.

And…

an array of paintball guns that shoot you when you get shot in the game.

The end of the video shows a British SAS solider testing the simulator. Very impressive.

Announcement: Available to upload assignment

2011-10-31T15:14:00.002-04:00

Hi all,

I've heard some of you had a problem with uploading the assignments.

The space is now available so pls check and see if available.

Thanks,

Juhee

Announcement: see my post on homework 3

2011-10-31T14:19:00.002-04:00

Folks,

Thought I'd make my post over on the forum more visible. It might be pretty helpful.

Best,

Ben

Announcement: in-class assignment

2011-10-26T09:20:00.001-04:00

Folks,

I'm out of town today, but we'll be having an in class assignment. It will improve your grade if you appear, but it will not be graded -- all you have to do is show up and work on it, and make sure you are on the roll.

One of our AI lab's students, Srinath Ravindran, will emcee and take roll.

He should be able to bring along some hardcopies, but you can also access the assignment here. It is drawn directly from this class's last previous final, so it is good preparation. What I attach here doesn't have answers, but answers are available in the course archive -- though I'd ask that you don't look at them until you've taken your best shot at answering yourselves first. Srinath will also have answers that he can display as you come up with answers.

Learn and have fun!

Best,

Ben

Find: Toshiba 6.1" Display with Resolution of 2560x1600, 495ppi -- 2xiPhone display res

2011-10-22T15:21:00.001-04:00

A 12x9 array of these please.

Toshiba Releases 6.1" Display with Resolution of 2560x1600

Pretty much ever since the iPhone 4 with retina display was launched, resolutions have played a major role in smartphone market. In September, Samsung unveiled Galaxy S II HD LTE, which sports a 4.65" 1280x720 display. That was the first smartphone with HD resolution (720p). Now there are already a few phones with HD resolution, for example Samsung Galaxy Nexus and LG Optimus LTE. Higher resolutions are not only courtesy of smartphones as "retina" displays are coming to tablets as well. On May, Samsung showed off a 10.1" panel with resolution of 2560x1600 - resolution that's only seen in high-end 30" monitors.

Toshiba is taking the resolution battle one step further by releasing a 6.1" LCD with 2560x1600 resolution. In terms of pixels per inch (PPI), that is 495. Below is a table comparing displays and their PPIs.

Comparison of display PPIs
	Screen Size	Resolution	PPI
iPhone 4/4S	3.5"	960x640	329.65
Samsung Nexus	4.65"	1280x720	315.83
Samsung's Unreleased Tablet Panel	10.1"	2560x1600	298.9
Toshiba's New Panel	6.1"	2560x1600	494.9

As you can see, Toshiba's new panel is a clear winner, and its PPI is 50% greater than iPhone 4/4S's, which has the second highest PPI. There is no word on the panel type but the viewing angles are 176 degrees, which hints toward IPS. Toshiba also claims 1000:1 contrast ratio and 61% NTSC color gamut.

Find: Sony's newest portable, the PS Vita, will ship on February 22 in the US

2011-10-22T14:07:00.001-04:00

The psp replacement in feb... Well after Xmas. Sony just can't get its act together.

Sony's newest portable, the PS Vita, will ship on February 22 in the US

Sony announced the price of the PS Vita at this year's E3, and the starting point of $250 was much lower than many of us expected. Now the system's release date has been confirmed for the United States, Canada, Latin America, and Europe: you will be able to get your hands on the system starting on February 22. Start saving!

"Our first-party studios and army of publishing partners have been extremely hard at work to ensure that PS Vita launches with a vast library of titles that deliver unique gameplay experiences that go beyond any handheld or mobile device on the market," Sony CEO Jack Tretton wrote on the PlayStation Blog. "We have more than 100 games currently in development globally that span many different genres, including Sound Shapes, Resistance: Burning Skies, Uncharted Golden Abyss, Capcom’s Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed, EA Sports’ FIFA, Activision’s Call of Duty, and numerous others that you’ll hear about in the months ahead."

The system will cost $250 for the standard hardware with WiFi connectivity, or $300 for a unit that includes 3G service from AT&T. We've had the chance to sit down with the hardware on a few occasions and we really, really like what we've seen so far. The Vita feels wonderful in the hand, the front and rear touch-panels work well, and the screen is much larger and sharper than it looks in pictures.

Gadget lust switch set to "on."

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Find: Jim Hunt Library Progress, Photos

2011-10-21T13:45:00.001-04:00

Looks awesome. Right across from the lab.

Jim Hunt Library Progress, Photos

A year until move-in, NC State’s Jim Hunt Library is progressing nicely.

Announcement: out of town next week

2011-10-21T11:54:00.003-04:00

Hi all,

I will be out of town to attend a conference next week.

If you have any questions, I am reachable by email.

-Juhee

Course: visual interfaces for mobiles, spring 2012

2011-10-19T03:59:00.000-04:00

CSC 495
Visual Interfaces for Mobile Devices

Mobiles are the future

Today's phones have as much processing power as the original Xbox
There are over 5 billion mobile subscribers worldwide, 3/4 of those are in developing nations
Nearly two billion phones were sold worldwide in 2010, vs. only 350 million PCs
Mobile sales are growing 10x faster than PC sales

To succeed in that future, you need to know how to

Build mobile apps
Create graphics for mobiles
Create effective mobile interfaces
Work in teams

Our course is designed to give you those skills

Instructor:
Ben Watson, Associate Professor, Computer Science

Content:
This course is an intensive introduction to the design and development of mobile interfaces and applications. By the course's end, student teams will design and build an interactive mobile app prototype for platforms such as iOS (iPhone, iPad) and Android (Nexus, Galaxy Tab). Along the way, students will learn mobile design technique, including ideation, rapid prototyping, and evaluation; and mobile technology, including hardware, usage environment, graphics, interfaces and programming. Guest experts from the RTP interaction design community, such as Allscripts, IBM and Epic Games will provide real world context.

Prerequisites:
CSC students: CSC 316

Schedule:
Spring 2012, MW 350p-505p

Enroll now!

Announcement: Assignment 2 makeup opportunity

2011-10-16T08:47:00.001-04:00

Many of you didnt do well on assignment 2. You can continue working on it until semester end with a -27% lateness penalty.

Ben.

Announcement: hw2 and midterm updated on gradebook

2011-10-16T08:26:00.002-04:00

Hi all,

The grade for hw2 and midterm are updated on http://courses.ncsu.edu/csc461/.

I won't use moodle for grading since it is useful only when we use it to submit the assignments.

For those who didn't submit the readme file, there are 2 points off in the 'good turn in' section.

Also, make sure the program runs on a Windows machine next time.

Anyone who wants to see the points for each subsection, we can arrange a time by email and you are welcome to visit the office.

-Juhee

Homework: rasterization

2011-10-12T13:31:00.004-04:00

Hey folks,

Here is our third assignment on rasterization, due November 2.

Best,

Ben

Announcement: exam results

2011-10-12T13:29:00.003-04:00

Hey folks,

The exam results are in. Here is the key. The statistics are:

first quartile: 60.25
average: 68.4
third quartile: 79.8
maximum: 92

We'll discuss more in class today.

Best,

Ben

Note: that color blindness simulator

2011-10-11T13:46:00.000-04:00

Here is that color blindness simulator that I like. Don't know why I couldn't find it....

Best,

Ben

Viz: A Family Tree For Video Game Controllers

2011-10-09T16:30:00.001-04:00

Fun

A Family Tree For Video Game Controllers – one thing missing

A very cool infographic showing the evolution of video game controllers but I can't help thinking one thing is missing.

...(read more)

Find: Wolfenstein gets ray traced - now with more horsepower and new effects!

2011-10-07T08:42:00.001-04:00

Interactive -- with 8 cards.

Wolfenstein gets ray traced - now with more horsepower and new effects!

Another IDF has started and we are excited to show our latest progress. Since previous demos we enhanced our cloud-based setup that was using four Knights Ferry cards as the (Intel MIC) as the "cloud" to now run Wolfenstein: Ray Traced at even eight cards in a single machine. In order to utilize the huge amount of horse power we are now running our demo for the first time in 1080p.

As additional eye-candy we included several post processing special effects (thanks to Ben Segovia). Just to clarify: those are not specific to ray tracing and have been seen in some games already. They are operating on the pixels of the rendered image (not on the 3D scene) - in our case directly on the Knights Ferry card. They can improve the perception of the rendered scene dramatically.

Depth of Field: The effect is well known to photographers. If we want the spectator to focus on a certain area in the picture then the less relevant parts can be blurred. Therefore the object of interest is still sharp and will attract the main attention.

Depth of field on/off (3% performance difference)
HDR Bloom: If in reality we leave from a dark room into the bright outside our eyes are adjusting over a few seconds to the new brightness. The same can also be observed with digital (video) cameras that mimic this behavior and adjust the brightness spectrum to a pleasantly looking image. While doing this cameras might produce a bloom that can also "bleed" into other objects.

Sent from my iPhone

Announcement: some homework grace

2011-10-05T06:17:00.000-04:00

Folks,

We are extending the lateness ladder for the current assignment by one class day.

That means that you can turn in your homework by end of day Monday and you will only lose 9%. By end of day Wednesday a week from today, it's back up to 27%, etc.

Good luck on the exam!

Best,

Ben

Announcement: use of internet during the open book exam

2011-10-04T14:13:00.000-04:00

If anyone does not have an internet device, and would not be okay with just using the classroom PC in that case, please let me know via email, and I will keep the playing field level by banning them from the exam. I will also keep your name anonymous.

Unless I hear from you by tomorrow 10am, internet devices will be allowed.

Also, if I don't receive any protests by then, and there are no further protests by drop day, internet devices will be allowed on the final exam.

Best,

Ben

Announcement: topics for tomorrow's exam

2011-10-04T13:51:00.002-04:00

Hey folks,

Here are the topics for tomorrow's exam. Basically, it's what we covered in class. If it's not mentioned here, it won't be on the exam. In certain cases, I specifically exclude some topics:

History
Ray tracing

Not frameless rendering

Pipeline

Understand the differences between model, view, and projection matrices
Understand how to convert from model to world coordinates

Rasterization

Not inside test
Not polygon fill
Understand interpolation
Understand the purpose of perspective correct interpolation

3D models and transforms
Projections and viewing

Not individual components of perspective transform

Illumination and shading
Texture mapping

Not multipass texturing

Hidden surface removal

No early solutions
No details on how to split poly

Hierarchies and other structures

No display lists, strips, vertex caching or vertex arrays

I've uploaded all the pencasts so far.

Best,

Ben

Spotted: HPG '11 -- acm high performance graphics symposium

2011-10-02T19:54:00.001-04:00

Premier event in gpu rendering. Nice looking papers on global illumination.

HPG '11

HPG '11 HPG '11: High Performance Graphics
August 05 - 07, 2011
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

HPG '11: Proceedings of the ACM SIGGRAPH Symposium on High Performance Graphics

Jobs: Triangle firm a finalist in Dell-sponsored contest

2011-10-01T14:31:00.001-04:00

Good idea, for company and for you.

Triangle firm a finalist in Dell-sponsored contest

Dell, Microsoft and MasterCard are looking for America’s favorite small business, and North Carolina State University graduate Vinay Kolluru thinks his startup has just the right mix to bring that title to the Triangle.

Although it’s a brand new company without much capital, Kolluru says his website, JetPitch.com, fills a void in the job market. And if his venture is successful, it will help drive the unemployment rate down, he says.

Essentially, his site allows college graduates to give an elevator pitch in a short video that prospective employers can watch from the comfort of their corner office...

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Sample models for assignment 2

2011-09-22T17:31:00.002-04:00

I've attached the sample models to be tested. Go to 'discuss' tab and you will see a zip file in forum titled 'Sample models'.

Also, for those who need the starting code for the assignment, refer to the forum titled 'Sample code'.

Let me know if you have any questions.

-Juhee

Announcement: posting to course sites, and FERPA releases

2011-09-21T13:14:00.000-04:00

Folks,

I'm not sure that I've spoken at all with you about privacy and our various course sites.

In the broadest spirit of learning, I prefer to make our course content as accessible to the public as possible.

However, to protect your privacy, you will not be allowed to add content on the public blog or wiki until you sign (via email or hardcopy) the university's FERPA form, which essentially says that you're okay with anyone seeing what you add and knowing you're in this class.

Our forum will remain private until shortly after the semester, at which point we will remove any members who have not returned the FERPA form, along with any of their posted content. In this way we can both protect your privacy and maintain continuity across semesters (allowing your comments to help future students).

Recall that adding content in this fashion is not strictly required. Reactions to readings are extra credit, and you can obtain participation marks by speaking in class or emailing me or our TA.

Nevertheless, you can still earn credit for these sorts of contributions without signing the FERPA form, if that is what you would prefer. Simply email us your comments, helpful suggestions, or reactions.

Best,

Ben.

Find: Ivy Bridge GPU to Support Resolutions of up to 4096x4096 -- 8x HD

2011-09-20T02:56:00.001-04:00

Will be quite a while tho before the whole pipeline from production to delivery to display marches in something approaching lockstep.

Ivy Bridge GPU to Support Resolutions of up to 4096x4096

Thanks VR-Zone for the image!

IDF 2011 ended on last Thursday but there is still lots of data showing up because sites are processing the data they have gathered. VR-Zone is now reporting that Ivy Bridge's GPU will support resolutions of up to 4096x4096 (commonly referred as 4Kx4K). We took a deeper look at the IB GPU in our Ivy Bridge Architecture piece, but we missed this upgrade. Sandy Bridge's GPU supports only resolutions of up to 2560x1600, so this is a huge jump since 4Kx4K has over four times more pixels.

It's unlikely that we will see any 4Kx4K displays though, given that 16:9 is the standard nowadays (some higher-end are 16:10 though). That suggests a resolution of 4096x2304, which actually makes more sense given the bandwidth limitations. 4096x4096 at 60Hz with 24-bit color would require a bandwidth of roughly 36Gb/s, more than any of the current display interfaces supports (DisplayPort 1.2 is the king at 21.6Gb/s). 4096x2304 requires only ~20.2Gb/s, and that DP 1.2 can easily provide. 4096x4096 should, however, work with DP 1.2 by lowering the refresh rate to e.g. 30Hz, which would reduce the required bandwidth to be within DisplayPort's range.

Displays with +2560x1600 resolution are very rare and expensive at the moment though. Back in June, EIZO announced a 36" monitor with resolution of 4096x2160, with a whopping price tag of $36,000 (yes, that is three zeros). However, considering that 10.1" tablets with 2560x1600 will soon be reality, it sounds likely that displays with 4096x2XXX resolution will soon be available at reasonable price points too.

Source: VR-Zone

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Find: BUILD: Details On Direct3D 11.1

2011-09-19T00:27:00.001-04:00

Better debug.

BUILD: Details On Direct3D 11.1

We're currently sitting in a Microsoft session on DirectX in Metro, where Microsoft is discussing the improvements they've made to DirectX for use with Metro. Every individual DirectX graphics API is getting some kind of improvement, but of course Direct3D is the most captivating.

Direct3D 11.1 will come with Windows 8 (no mention of it being backported to Vista/7, but I'd count on it). The focus on D3D 11.1 has been on performance and efficiency by adding new methods to more efficiently do some common tasks, but there are also a few new features to quickly mention.

Cap bits are back in a way after being removed in D3D 10; the primary purpose of these seems to be to allow Win8 to better handle supporting traditional Intel/NVIDIA/AMD GPUs, and more exotic SoC GPUs by allowing applications to see if the GPU is a tile based deferred renderer, among other things.

Direct3D has better access to Media Foundation (Windows' video playback/encode API). It's now possible to pipe MF output through pixel shaders before display.

WARP, the software rasterizer, has been given a performance boost

Shader tracing has been added for developers to trace shader performance (previously this would require GPU-specific tools)

Stereoscopic 3D support has been added to D3D. We don't have the details of the underpinnings here, but we expect that this will be the vendor-neutral S3D API users have bee clamoring for, without requiring devs to directly interact with quad buffers on a per-vendor basis

Further Reading: MSDN - Direct3D 11.1 Features

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Find: Portal is used to teach science as Valve gives game away for limited time

2011-09-18T22:55:00.001-04:00

Portal is used to teach science as Valve gives game away for limited time

Portal is one of the rare games that can change the way we think about the world, how we view the physical space around us. Valve is now offering the first Portal title for free, provided that you download a copy of the program for either Mac or PC before September 20. This is the full version of the game, and it will remain in your library after that date; you simply must download the title before next Tuesday.

"One of the biggest challenges in teaching science, technology, engineering, and math is capturing the students' imaginations long enough for them to see all of the possibilities that lie ahead," the company wrote on the Learn with Portals site. "Using interactive tools like the Portal series to draw them in makes physics, math, logic, spatial reasoning, probability, and problem-solving interesting, cool, and fun, which gets us one step closer to our goal—engaged, thoughtful kids!"

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Find: octanerender running on a VDACTr8 with 8 GTX 580 GPUs

2011-09-17T14:58:00.001-04:00

Looks good, but still not truly real time.

octanerender running on a VDACTr8 with 8 GTX 580 GPUs

A promotional video from RenderStream, providers of multi-GPU systems for rendering and science, does a great job of also promoting OctaneRender on multiple GPU’s.

octanerender demonstration running on a RenderStream VDACTr8 with 8 GTX 580 GPUs. In this video we demonstrate the rapid visual feedback one can expect when using an 8 GPU system in a detailed interior scene. We also show how well octanerender perfroms when scaling from 1-8 GPUs.

via octanerender running on a RenderStream VDACTr8 with 8 GTX 580 GPUs – YouTube.

Reach out to the community of Visualization and Graphics Experts by Advertising on VizWorld.com

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Viz: This Chart Explains the Confusing Hierarchy of Nvidia GeForce Graphics Cards

2011-09-15T23:51:00.001-04:00

Handy if you are looking for the most bang for your buck

This Chart Explains the Confusing Hierarchy of Nvidia GeForceost Graphics Cards [Charts]

If you've ever gone shopping for graphics cards, chances are you've been baffled by hardware manufacturer Nvidia's crazy naming scheme for their video cards. This simple chart will help you determine where each falls in a hierarchy of graphics performance.

Anyone who's ever tried to buy an Nvidia card has undoubtedly been confused by the chipset names: you've got the 9500 GT which is somehow worse than a GTX 275, which is somehow better than a GTS 450—the numbers and letters just don't make much sense. Hidden away on Nvidia's web site is this simple graph that compares each of their modern GPUs to one another with a simple benchmark value. Obviously there's a bit more to it than this—certain cards are better at certain things and have different features—but if you're trying to find out where your card falls in the hierarchy of Nvidia cards, this is a pretty simple way to see where it goes.

If you're an AMD fan, you can generally just look at the numbers on the cards (since the hierarchy is fairly well organized), and if you'd like to compare both companies against one another, or if you are comparing cards for actual shopping purposes, you can use something like Anandtech's GPU comparison tool.

The original graph is on the "Performance" page of every video card on geforce.com, so the link below is just one of the many pages on which it appears. Check out geforce.com for more info.

GeForce GTX 550 Ti | GeForce.com via Reddit

You can contact Whitson Gordon, the author of this post, at whitson@lifehacker.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.

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Announcement: Grade of Assignment 1

2011-09-15T15:30:00.007-04:00

Hi all,

You are now able to check the grade book for assignment 1.

Base total is 80:

Rendering new model(40) + Wireframe(20) + Interaction(10) + Properly turned in (10) - Delay

The final point you see is, base total normalized to 100(100) + bonus points(40).

Bonus includes point mode(20), toggle other models (5), display several models at once(5), and individual wireframe (10).

Average: 98.08

Median: 100

25th quartile: 91.25

75th quartile: 108.125

Max: 140

Properly turned in points(10) are given to everyone this time, but will be applied from next assignment. If I need to email individually for additional submission, then I will take points off.

Pls send email if you have any questions.

-Juhee

Announcement: late to office hours today

2011-09-15T13:38:00.001-04:00

Due to a proposal defense

Announcement: new discussion forum, please accept invitations!

2011-09-13T13:41:00.001-04:00

Folks,

Just sent you all some invitations to the ning network we'll try out to replace moderator (you're right that left a lot to be desired) as a discussion forum. You can post text, images, and video on it.

I hope you folks use the forum to discuss homework and lectures, e.g. posting buggy images from your code, or buggy video, asking for and giving pointers about XNA, posting stuff about lectures, and just telling us about cool stuff you find.

You should be able to join with your ncsu IDs.

Best,

Ben

Find: The Updated Tegra Roadmap: Kal-El+ in 2012, Wayne in Late 2012/Early 2013

2011-09-12T19:44:00.001-04:00

Improved nvidia mobile gpus every six months.

The Updated Tegra Roadmap: Kal-El+ in 2012, Wayne in Late 2012/Early 2013

Last week we confirmed NVIDIA would be introducing a Tegra SoC with integrated Icera baseband called Grey, but we got the timeframe down. Above you'll see the updated Tegra roadmap. Wayne has been pushed out to late 2012/early 2013 and there's now a Kal-El+ part that will refresh the lineup in the middle of next year. Grey will debut in 2013.

Also note that with Wayne, NVIDIA bifurcates the Tegra roadmap into a high end and a mainstream SoC. Wayne (and its derivatives) will continue to be two chip solutions with a discrete modem, while Grey will introduce single chip solutions with integrated Icera basebands.

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Find: Nvidia CEO: mobile chips to be a $20b business by 2015, new processor coming for Windows 8

2011-09-10T21:29:00.001-04:00

Nvidia is thinking long term, unlike ati and intel. We will see what the new ati CEO does.

Nvidia CEO: mobile chips to be a $20b business by 2015, new processor coming for Windows 8

“If you don’t have a mobile strategy you are in deep turd.” That’s how Nvidia’s CEO Jen-Hsun Huang ended a meeting this afternoon with a few select members of the [...]

Find: Sony quad hd home projector signals the end of hd

2011-09-10T20:04:00.001-04:00

Here it comes. Stereo didn't do the trick, surprise! But I'll take a wall sized retinal display for sure. Even with this, a long way to go....

Sony’s VPL-VW1000ES 4K home theater projector signals the end of 1080p

In tacit admission that 1080p’s days are numbered, Sony just announced a 4K projector for the home. Yes, the home. While Sony’s been pushing 4K into digital cinemas for years, [...]

Announcement: Files to submit for an assignment

2011-09-10T15:06:00.005-04:00

Most of the students submitted that was needed for grading but there are several students who are not sure what to submit for the assignment.

The files expected are,

- a zip file of the whole project (include .sln, if too big, then remove bin and obj files)

- 'readme' file which give instructions on the interaction and extra credit.

Submitting just the 'application' does not help since it needs the Content file as well and sometimes puts out a 'HiDef profile' message.

Announcement: in class adjustment to assignment 1 grading

2011-09-09T17:52:00.002-04:00

Hey folks,

Many of you mentioned that for the wireframe portion of the assignment, you simply called a "render entire model in wireframe" method. That was not what we hoped you'd do, but you will not be penalized for that, instead you will receive 10% extra credit if you render line segments individually (I've increased this a bit from what I announced in class).

Best,

Ben

Announcement: course schedule (including final date)

2011-09-09T17:46:00.001-04:00

Folks,

I've put up a course schedule containing estimated deadlines for assignments and exams.

Best,

Ben

Homework: ray tracing (updated)

2011-09-09T17:39:00.001-04:00

Updated: added link!

Your second assignment is available here. It is due September 28.

Best,

Ben

CryEngine 3 (free)

2011-09-08T16:48:00.001-04:00

Sweet!

From our lab member Adam.

Best,

Ben

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Adam Marrs <adamcmarrs@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 1:29 PM
Subject: CryEngine 3 (free)
To: Ben Watson <bwatson@ncsu.edu>

This looks like a worthwhile use of time:

http://www.crydev.net/dm_eds/download_detail.php?id=4

Announcement: Delay penalty point system

2011-09-07T10:53:00.002-04:00

Submitted by the end of Sep.7th -3points

Sep.12th -9points

Sep.14th -27points

Sep.19th -81points

So, for example, assignments submitted between Sep. 8th and 12th would have 9 points off for the delay.

Announcement: homework 1 due Tuesday evening

2011-09-02T17:43:00.001-04:00

Hey folks,

Due to the holiday, homework 1 will be due end Tuesday, not end Monday.

Best,

Ben

Find: Sony Preparing New 3D Headset for Japanese Release

2011-08-31T20:42:00.001-04:00

Ivan Sutherland lives! Oh wait, he does live. The ultimate geekware. Every politician needs one.

Sony Preparing New 3D Headset for Japanese Release

The HMZ-T1, the first iteration of a concept Sony demoed this past CES, will release in Japan on November 11, says Sony Japan.

Japan will serve as a test market for the futuristic piece of headgear, which boasts two 0.7-inch OLED panels each with a resolution of 1280x780. Sony says the experience compares to watching a 750-inch 3D screen from 20 meters away. The device, which also includes integrated 5.1 surround sound headphones, isn’t mobile, of course. It will need to be be tethered to its HDMI-ready processing unit.

Sony is expected to price the device at 60,000 yen ($783 US). The company’s currently mum about a release in other markets. Performance in Japan could make that decision for them.

Source: Sony, Engadget

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Assignment1 (updated)

2011-08-29T17:41:00.001-04:00

Hey folks,

Our first homework, on getting familiar with XNA, is available here. It is due September 5.

Updated: Due to the holiday, the homework will be due Tuesday September 6.

Best,

Ben

Find: Sprinkle brings Water Physics to Honeycomb

2011-08-28T04:12:00.001-04:00

This will run on nvidia's new 4 core mobile chip.

Sprinkle brings Water Physics to Honeycomb

NVIDIA has talked in the past about its Tegra Zone marketplace, which is home to Tegra-optimized games. Well, today they've announced availability of a game which caught our eye called Sprinkle by a developer named Mediocre. While the developer might be named Mediocre, the game is actually anything but. Sprinkle does an impressive job simulating water physics and using it as a game mechanic to solve a variety of puzzles. The objective is to put out the fires (caused by falling meteorites) fast enough by using a user-controlled firehose. Fail to do so with limited water and time, and things don't go so well for the inhabitants.

While the game is actually very enjoyable on Android 3.x (I flew through the demo levels on a Galaxy Tab 10.1), the real news is that Mediocre is in the process of developing an even more enhanced version of Sprinkle geared towards NVIDIA's Kal-El SoC. No doubt this Kal-El version will support additional water physics elements and possibly even more compelling shader effects on water. As a reminder, Kal-El is NVIDIA's upcoming quad-core Cortex-A9 (with MPE) SoC, paired with a more powerful GeForce GPU.

{gallery 1332}

Source: NVIDIA

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Event: Register now for New Game, the conference for HTML5 game developers

2011-08-25T20:03:00.001-04:00

Sounds nice!

Register now for New Game, the conference for HTML5 game developers

By Seth Ladd, Chrome Team

This post almost wasn’t written.

I’ve been a bit too busy playing and testing new browser-based games such as Monster Dash, Angry Birds, and the newly released SONAR. Bigger and better games are coming to the browser rapidly (and just wait until Native Client with 3D lands in Chrome), and it’s hard to keep up with the technology and scene. So what better way to bring everyone together to share stories and keep up to date than to hold a conference dedicated to HTML5 game development?

New Game, the first North American conference for HTML5 game developers, is now open for registration. You are invited to join hundreds of HTML5 game developers for two days of technical sessions and case studies from developers and publishers who brought their games to the open web platform. The event will take place November 1-2, 2011 at the beautiful Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, CA.

This year, New Game looks at what is possible in the browser today. Sessions will focus on the technologies that have elevated the browser-based gaming experience, such as WebGL, Canvas, and JavaScript performance techniques. In addition, the conference will feature sessions exploring and analyzing lessons-learned from recent HTML5 game launches.

New Game is honored to have Rich Hilleman, EA’s Chief Creative Officer, keynote the event. The schedule also includes sessions from Mozilla, Spil, Opera, Google, Bocoup, GameSalad, Moblyng, and others. After the first day, we’ll network with our colleagues and share high scores at the New Game party, open to all registered attendees.

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Announcement: XNA tutorial on Monday

2011-08-24T12:31:00.001-04:00

Hey folks,

Ju Hee will give an introductory tutorial on XNA on Monday. In preparation for that, please download XNA onto your laptops, and bring them (fully charged) to class that day.

Best,

Ben

Find: Pro gamers playing "Gears of War 3" this weekend

2011-08-24T00:18:00.001-04:00

Epic developers vs the pros in gow 3.

Pro gamers playing "Gears of War 3" this weekend

Spectators at this weekend's match-up of professional video gamers at the Raleigh Convention Center will get to see "Gears of War 3," the much-anticipated new game from Cary's Epic Games, in action.

Two teams of pro players will take on four members of Epic's development group Friday at 8:15 p.m. at the Major League Gaming Pro Circuit competition. It's a return engagement for MLG's Pro Circuit, which also staged a competition in Raleigh last year.

More than 1,000 pros are expected to compete for more than $120,000 in prizes playing games such as "Call of Duty: Black Ops" and "Halo: Reach" this weekend. The action on three stages will be shown on giant video screens with live commentary.

A Pro Circuit event in Anaheim, Calif., attracted more than 20,000 spectators this weekend.

Spectator passes good for the entire weekend at the Raleigh Convention Center are available for $25 here. The event also will be streamed online.

"Gears of War 3" is set to launch Sept. 20. The first two installments of the franchise have sold more than 13 million copies.

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Find: Sony announces PS3 price cut in all territories, on both PS3 models

2011-08-22T20:24:00.001-04:00

Another indication that new consoles are due. And that the golden age of consoles is over!

Sony announces PS3 price cut in all territories, on both PS3 models

Sony has officially cut the price on the PlayStation 3 in all major markets, the company announced in Germany on Tuesday. The 160GB system will now be $250 in the United States, 250 euros in the European territories, and 24,980 yen in Japan. The price drop is effective immediately in all territories except Japan, where the price drop will begin on August 18.

The PlayStation 3 model with more storage is also seeing its price cut, with the 320GB system now being sold for $300 in the US, 300 euros in European territories, and 29,980 yen. "In addition, a limited edition inFAMOUS 2 bundle is now available at participating retailers across North America. The bundle retails for $299 and includes a 320 GB PlayStation 3, a copy of inFAMOUS 2 and a 30-day membership to PlayStation Plus," SCEA's CEO Jack Tretton wrote on the official blog.

Sony also used this opportunity to show off the success of the system. "Since its release in 2006, PS3 has gained tremendous support from fans around the world and its cumulative worldwide sales reached a milestone of 50 million units as of March 29, 2011," Sony said in the statement. "Equipped with future proof cutting-edge technologies including the sophisticated processors, Cell Broadband Engine and RSX, as well as the Blu-ray disc (BD) player and HDMI terminal, PS3 has continuously enhanced its value to consumers through system software updates to support new features and services including stereoscopic 3D content playback and support for the PlayStation Move motion controller."

Your move, Microsoft.

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Find: next nvidia gpus arriving early next year

2011-08-14T23:05:00.001-04:00

Update: Kepler GPUs Shipping This Year? NVIDIA Says No

Although we're barely into August, both AMD and NVIDIA are already making their first moves for their next generation products due at the end of this year and into next year. AMD has recently told investors that it intends to release products using 28nm GPUs this year, and now NVIDIA is telling developers something similar

At their GTC Workshop Japan event, NVIDIA's Senior VP of Research Chris Malachowsky let developers know that the company is expecting that Kepler "should start shipping by the end of the year." Kepler will be the basis of NVIDIA's next generation of GPUs, and like AMD's forthcoming products is expected to be fabricated on TSMC's 28nm process. Though the focus at an event like GTC is primarily on workstation (Quadro) and server (Tesla) products, historically NVIDIA has shipped consumer (GeForce) products first, so it's likely that we're looking at the first shipping date for NVIDIA's newest GeForce parts.

Of course it goes without saying that shipping a GPU is not the same as a video card being available for sale - NVIDIA has made their sale once they ship a GPU to a partner. So NVIDIA shipping Kepler GPUs this year does not necessarily mean that the resulting video cards will also be available this year.

As for performance, it shouldn't come as any surprise that NVIDIA is offering few details - never mind the fact that GTC isn't the venue for gaming performance. For GTC NVIDIA is talking about double precision performance, which looks like it will become a major race between AMD and NVIDIA for this upcoming generation. For Kepler NVIDIA is expecting "about 3x improvement in [double precision] performance per watt," which would be a combination of the die shrink and architectural changes

Update: NVIDIA sent Xbit a clarification that puts the brakes on things.

"Although we will have early silicon this year, Kepler-based products are actually scheduled to go into production in 2012. We wanted to clarify this so people wouldn’t expect product to be available this year,"

So technically Kepler GPUs would still ship to partners this year, but "early silicon" normally signifies GPUs that aren't quite production worthy yet. In any case finished video cards definitely won't be out this year given NVIDIA's latest statement.

Source: Xbit Labs

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Find: OpenGL 4.2 Specification Released

2011-08-14T22:51:00.001-04:00

What's new in 4.2. Better atomic access to memory, better tessellation replication into views, more.

OpenGL 4.2 Specification Released

Coenciding with the start of SIGGRAPH 2011, Khronos has released version 4.2 of the OpenGL specification. Khronos routinely updates the OpenGL specification to add new features to the API for existing hardware and this update is no different, coming a little over a year after the release of the OpenGL 4.1 specification. As with 4.1 this is primarily for use with DX11 class hardware (GeForce 400/500, Radeon HD 5000/6000), however NVIDIA's developer site mentions that some features can be made available as extensions to work with hardware as old as OpenGL2/DX9 class hardware.

Notable new features in OpenGL 4.2 include:

Enabling shaders with atomic counters and load/store/atomic read-modify-write operations to a single level of a texture. These capabilities can be combined, for example, to maintain a counter at each pixel in a buffer object for single-rendering-pass order-independent transparency;

Capturing GPU-tessellated geometry and drawing multiple instances of the result of a transform feedback to enable complex objects to be efficiently repositioned and replicated;

Modifying an arbitrary subset of a compressed texture, without having to re-download the whole texture to the GPU for significant performance improvements;

Packing multiple 8 and 16 bit values into a single 32-bit value for efficient shader processing with significantly reduced memory storage and bandwidth, especially useful when transferring data between shader stages.

Currently NVIDIA has released their first OpenGL 4.2 drivers for developers, while AMD is expecting to release beta drivers soon.

Source: BusinessWire

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Find: SIGGRAPH 2011: NVIDIA’s Upcoming Workstation Technologies - Project Maximus & Monterey Technology

2011-08-14T22:28:00.001-04:00

Combining gpu with gpgpu for Maya etc; serving gpu through the cloud

SIGGRAPH 2011: NVIDIA’s Upcoming Workstation Technologies - Project Maximus & Monterey Technology

SIGGRAPH tends to be an interesting mix of announcements and demonstrations. Major vendors like NVIDIA like to make their announcements at their own trade shows – or at the very least at a more press-focused show – but amidst the real-world demonstrations you’ll find a few new things that aren’t quite being announced but are being previewed for the very first time. In this case NVIDIA is using SIGGRAPH to present two new technologies to its workstation user base: Project Maximus, and Quadro Virtual Graphics Technology (AKA Monterey Technology). While we aren’t attending SIGGRAPH this year, we did have an opportunity to talk with NVIDIA and discuss these new technologies.

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Find: Major League Gaming is Coming to Raleigh

2011-08-13T17:13:00.001-04:00

Major League Gaming is Coming to Raleigh

For the second year in a row, Major League Gaming is coming to Raleigh, and with it comes an unprecedented amount of anticipation for a world class event. Previous MLG Events have filled convention centers in Dallas, TX, Columbus, OH and Anaheim, CA, literally running out of seated and standing room by Sunday afternoon. The above photo is from the most recent MLG Event in Anaheim.

Major League Gaming is the largest competitive gaming league in the world, bringing “E-Sports” to over 40 million people annually. In 2011, there will be 6 MLG Events, culminating in the National Championship event in Providence, Rhode Island. The 3 main title events are tournaments in Halo: Reach, Call of Duty: Black Ops, and StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty. This year, the three previous events have drawn competitors of international caliber, with Starcraft 2 having brought players from Korea, Germany, Sweden, and Canada, and Australia. The three day event will start on August 26 and finish on August 28, at the Raleigh Convention Center. Think you’ve got what it takes to compete against the top gaming talent in the world?

Aside from the tournaments, where thousands of spectators will view all of the action via three giant main stages with huge video screens and live commentating, there will be booths where attendees can meet and greet with Pro gamers, get pre-release access to games, and check out products from many of the partners of MLG.

The event will take place at:

Raleigh Convention Center, Halls A & B

500 South Salisbury Street

Raleigh, NC 27601

Event Passes:

Spectator Passes = $25

Halo: Reach Team Pass = $280

Call of Duty: Black Ops Team Pass = $240

Starcraft 2 Player Pass = $70

Passes can be purchased here. So, if you want to try to go toe-to-toe with the best in the world, or to meet and greet with some of the industry’s most popular faces, or just observe some amazing gaming, come out to MLG.

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Announcement: TA office hours

2011-08-12T13:06:00.003-04:00

Hi everyone,
My name is Juhee Bae and I am the TA for CSC461 Fall 2011.
My email is jbae3@ncsu.edu and will hold the office time at 2-3pm on Thursday at EB2 #2244.

Find: Khronos ships OpenGL 4.2 spec, outlines plans for new sensor API

2011-08-08T21:18:00.001-04:00

Better graphics for native and web apps, general gpu computing for web, general mobile sensor API.

Khronos ships OpenGL 4.2 spec, outlines plans for new sensor API

The Khronos group unveiled on Monday the OpenGL 4.2 specification, the newest update to the cross-platform 3D graphics API.

The new spec includes a handful of new features designed to improve the performance of common operations in order to allow developers to more easily create high-performance 3D software. These features include fine-grained modification of textures, more efficient data sharing between shader programs, and the ability to re-use shapes that the GPU has already tessellated without having to tessellate them again.

In common with other OpenGL 4.x point releases, the new features should be supported by existing OpenGL 4/Direct3D 11-class hardware, requiring only driver updates to provide the new functionality. NVIDIA released OpenGL 4.2 drivers today, while AMD intends to release a driver with beta support shortly.

OpenGL is Khronos' best-known specification, but the group has broader goals. It has already released the WebGL specification, a 3D API for HTML5; to that the group announced plans to add a new WebCL specification. Just as WebGL provides OpenGL-like graphics to Web developers, WebCL will provide heterogeneous OpenCL-like computation to Web developers, giving them access to GPU-accelerated computation where available, with the ability to fall back to the CPU where necessary. This will allow, for example, HTML5 games to include physics engines, and for complex image and video processing.

WebCL will be developed by the WebGL working group, and prototype implementations from Nokia, which spearheaded the work, and Samsung are already available.

WebGL came under criticism from Microsoft in June, with the company claiming that the technology couldn't be implemented in a secure way. Khronos representatives dispute this claim, pointing to security features that OpenGL has added to prevent WebGL denial-of-service attacks and the adoption of the cross-origin resource sharing (CORS) specification to prevent information leakage between domains. The group acknowledges that driver bugs can still be an issue, but argues that browser whitelists and blacklists can safeguard users. Khronos says adoption of the technology will spur driver developers to fix their software.

Khronos also announced plans to create a general sensor API. This is in order to provide consistent high-level access to a wealth of sensors that computers and smartphones are increasingly being equipped with—accelerometers, gyroscopes,...

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Find: AUO VP says large OLED TVs won't be feasible for commercial use until 2014

2011-07-28T22:08:00.002-04:00

Oled efficiency and contrast still a few years off.

AUO VP says large OLED TVs won't be feasible for commercial use until 2014

Eager to get your hands on a big-screen OLED TV? Then it looks like you may still have to wait a few more years -- at least according to Paul Peng, the executive vice president of display manufacturer AU Optronics (otherwise known as AUO). While the technology has been getting cheaper and more efficient as of late, he says that the production costs are still too high and yield rates too low for large OLED TVs to be feasible for commercial use any time before 2014. Of course, we suppose that all depends on your definition of "feasible." Last we heard, LG was still planning on releasing a 55-inch OLED TV by mid-2012 -- for a yet-to-be-disclosed price.

AUO VP says large OLED TVs won't be feasible for commercial use until 2014 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Jul 2011 15:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Find: Intel integrated graphics: finally good enough for the MacBook Air?

2011-07-28T21:52:00.001-04:00

Integrated intel vs discrete gpu: slightly worse speed and lower power vs slightly higher speed and higher power.

Intel integrated graphics: finally good enough for the MacBook Air?

At long last, Apple released Intel's highly anticipated Sandy Bridge updates on both the MacBook Air and Mac mini earlier this month. However, many of these machines—along with the 13" MacBook Pro introduced earlier this year—rely solely on Intel's integrated graphics, a move that raised eyebrows among users allergic to the reduced performance that often comes with Intel's integrated GPUs. The move from Intel's integrated GPU from the 320M indeed has some trade-offs, but some investigation reveals that performance is, as we suspected, largely the same.

While Intel's reputation for graphics hasn't gone much beyond "just barely enough to suffice," the integrated GPU in Sandy Bridge processors represents Intel's first serious effort to address performance. That performance generally compares to low-end discrete GPUs, while in many cases reducing overall power consumption.

We thought it would be useful to examine the differences between Apple's previous integrated solution—the 320M—and Intel's HD Graphics 3000. Given that Intel's next-generation architecture, codenamed Ivy Bridge, is expected to offer significantly improved graphics, we can draw some conclusions about why Apple decided to make the switch now rather than later.

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Intel integrated graphics: finally good enough for the MacBook Air?

2011-07-28T21:49:00.001-04:00

Sent to you via Google Reader

Intel integrated graphics: finally good enough for the MacBook Air?

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Tool: Announcing Git Support for Google Code Project Hosting

2011-07-25T22:02:00.001-04:00

Looks like the Goog will host coding projects using subversion, mercurial or now git. I'll gave to check it out.

Announcing Git Support for Google Code Project Hosting

We’re pleased to announce today that in addition to supporting the Subversion and Mercurial version control systems, Google Code Project Hosting now supports Git. Git is a popular distributed version control system (DVCS) like Mercurial, and it is used by many popular projects including the Linux kernel and Android.

Now, when you create a project or visit your existing project’s Administration > Source tab, you have the option of choosing Git as your version control system. You’ll enjoy all the same great Google Project Hosting features, like project updates, advanced issue tracking, and an easy-to-use VCS-backed wiki—only now, you can do it with Git. You can also create an instant server-side clone of any existing Git repository by clicking the “Create a clone” button on the project’s checkout page.

For more information, including an introduction to Git and tips on converting existing Subversion and Mercurial repositories, see the new Git section of our support wiki.

Under the Hood

Since our original announcement of Mercurial support, Git has grown significantly more popular and user-friendly, and on the technical side, it has added an efficient “smart” HTTP protocol that fits with Google’s HTTP-based infrastructure. (Note that this feature is only available in version 1.6.6 and later.)

Like our Mercurial implementation, our Git implementation stores object data in a custom data store built on Bigtable, which provides us with efficient, scalable source code repositories with near-instantaneous replication to multiple datacenters around the world. To fit with our existing Python-based system, our Git server implementation is powered in part by

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Find: Amazon rolls out textbook rentals for Kindle, promises discounts up to 80 percent

2011-07-18T14:24:00.002-04:00

This could be big.

Amazon rolls out textbook rentals for Kindle, promises discounts up to 80 percent

Students can already save a few bucks by opting for a digital version of a textbook over a hardcover, and they can now save even more courtesy of Amazon if they aren't too intent on hanging onto the book after they're done with it. The company has just announced textbook rentals for Kindle, which promises to let students save "up to 80 percent" off the list price of those often pricey textbooks. That discount varies depending on the rental period -- which can be anywhere from 30 to 360 days -- and the option is already available on "tens of thousands" of textbooks from a number of publishers including John Wiley & Sons, Elsevier and Taylor & Francis. What's more, you can also rest assured that all of your annotations will be saved even after the rental has expired, and be accessible at any time on the Kindle website (or in the book itself if you ever decide to rent it again for old time's sake). Press release is after the break.

Continue reading Amazon rolls out textbook rentals for Kindle, promises discounts up to 80 percent

Amazon rolls out textbook rentals for Kindle, promises discounts up to 80 percent originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 18 Jul 2011 11:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Amazon | Email this | Comments

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Find: John Carmack: 'Unquestionable' That Mobile Will Surpass Current Consoles - IndustryGamers

2011-07-08T21:56:00.002-04:00

Id makes quake etc. Carmack is their resident ubergeek. He sees mobiles passing consoles soon. Makes interesting point here about convenience in gaming.

John Carmack: 'Unquestionable' That Mobile Will Surpass Current Consoles - IndustryGamers

We'll all be walking around with mobile devices more powerful than the PS3 soon, says the id programming genius.

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Find: Samsung releases code of WebCL implementation for WebKit

2011-07-07T21:42:00.001-04:00

Nvidia's Cuda for gpu accelerated general computing competes with open standard opencl. Webgl permits browser apps to accelerate graphics using gpu. New standard webcl allows browser apps to accelerate non graphics apps with gpu.

Samsung releases code of WebCL implementation for WebKit

The WebCL standard is still a work in progress, but the first experimental implementations have already arrived. Samsung has opened the source code of its WebCL prototype for WebKit, which is designed to run on Mac OS X. The company has also published some videos that demonstrate the efficacy of WebCL in action.

WebCL—not to be confused with WebGL—is a new Web standard that is being devised by the Khronos group. It will provide JavaScript bindings for OpenCL, a framework that allows software to offload general-purpose computing operations to a GPU. The goal behind WebCL is to bring OpenCL to the Web—making it possible for sophisticated Web applications to significantly accelerate computationally intensive workloads.

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Find: AnandTech Mobile Graphics Guide, Summer 2011

2011-07-06T21:25:00.001-04:00

AnandTech Mobile Graphics Guide, Summer 2011

If desktop graphics hardware can be more than a little confusing, deciphering performance of mobile graphics parts can be (and has historically been) an absolute nightmare. Way back in the day it was at least fairly easy to figure out which desktop chip was hiding in which mobile kit, but both AMD and NVIDIA largely severed ties between mobile and desktop branding. They may not want to readily admit that, and in the case of certain models they still pretty heavily rely on the cachet associated with their desktop hardware, but it's by and large true. So to help you make sense of mobile graphics, we present to you the first in what will hopefully be a regular series of guides.

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Find: led light in displays keeps you up, improve recall

2011-07-06T00:18:00.001-04:00

Not good for sleep, but good for the environment

In Eyes, a Clock Calibrated by Wavelengths of Light - NYTimes.com

The effects of light on melatonin, which regulates our internal clocks, and our overall health are just beginning to be explored.

Find: Video Game Industry Continues Major Growth, Gartner Says

2011-07-05T21:22:00.001-04:00

Game growth will come, but it will be mobile and online.

Video Game Industry Continues Major Growth, Gartner Says

A new report says the video game industry will grow to $112 billion in sales by 2015, with the largest growth through mobile and online gaming.

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Find: ARM chips to rival PS3, Xbox 360 in 18 months?

2011-07-03T08:30:00.001-04:00

Arm based mobile chips will soon be faster than ps3 and xbox 360. So they are about 7-8 years behind on the gpu curve. But way ahead in tris per watt....

ARM chips to rival PS3, Xbox 360 in 18 months?

ARM has been beating the performance drum again, this time telling the Inquirer that a new Mali GPU design due out in 18 months will make its chips the equal of current-gen gaming consoles like the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3. There can be little doubt that an ARM-based mobile chip will surpass these two consoles in pixel-pushing capacity (measured variously) at some point in the future, but we've heard this kind of talk about Mali before.

Some Googling turns up 2009 and 2010 as years when Mali was supposed to bring Xbox 360-level graphics to mobiles, and we're certain that if we went past the first page of search results we could find more.

But whatever ARM has said in the past, it's not really a stretch to imagine this happening in roughly an 18-month timeframe. For reference, at the 2010 ISSCC, Microsoft showed off the SoC that powers the latest version of the Xbox 360, a combo chip that puts the CPU and GPU of the console on the same 45nm die and clocks in at only 372 million transistors. That's a bit over 100 million transistors more than NVIDIA's 40nm Tegra 2 mobile chip from that same year. So yes, given a process shrink to 28nm or thereabouts, it seems quite possible that ARM will at the very least be able to pack as much hardware as the Xbox 360 does into an application processor.

So much for ARM's Mali claims. The much more interesting question is, what will NVIDIA have out at this point?

The company's upcoming Kal-El part is due out in the second half of this year, and it could well bring something approaching console-level performance to tablets and other portables. And 18 months from now, we may begin to see something out of Project Denver, which could well make for a killer desktop gaming chip (assuming that any games will run on it).

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