Tablets are everywhere these days thanks to the iPad, but they lack a certain finesse necessary for fine digital arts work. That’s where longtime players like Wacom and Modbook still excel. Recently, I’ve had both a Wacom Cintiq 22HD and a new Modbook Pro in the studio for testing, and both have proven immensely handy for digital drawing, painting and photo editing. → Read More
Ars Technica has a terrific look at the Linux graphics stack, from the original X protocol pioneered by MIT computer scientist Bob Scheifler up to the new Wayland display manager (for lack of a better word) by Kristian Høgsberg. Many of the current crop of Linux users might well be completely unaware of the robust network functionality built into X.org, the current iteration of the X protocol… → Read More
While Nintendo is normally very closed-mouthed about the actual hardware used in their systems, there has been some news recently about the graphics chipset used in the 3DS. You might be surprised to find out that it’s not your typical NVIDIA Tegra, but instead some new PICA200 chip (yes, PICA, hold your giggles to the end please). → Read More
Ah, graphics. One of the present-day netbook’s Achilles’ heels. While NVIDIA struck a deal earlier this year with VIA to work on its netbook-friendly “Nano” processors, it appears that the graphics giant is employing a wait-and-see position towards the rest of the netbook market in general. NVIDIA CFO Marv Burkett said at a recent technology conference, "We’re not saying… → Read More
Interesting. I’ve always wondered when a lossless compression scheme for RAW shots would become popular — there’s already Rawzor, but it’s not the same idea. This XDepth Raw format is encoded in such a way that any viewer capable of processing jpegs can view this format, although it allows for all the conservation of data and depth that RAW, DNG, and CRW among others… → Read More
http://services.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f8/980795828 I’m no asset creation specialist, but from what I’ve heard it’s not that difficult to get textures, although making a decent normal map that actually corresponds to a texture’s source is tricky. Some boffins at Dolby thought there had to be an easier way than what was available, so they got to thinking. → Read More
Damn, when I first heard about the GeForce 260 and 280 I thought it was checkmate. No one expected much of the new line of Radeons in the first place given ATI’s lackluster offerings lately, and combine that with the improvement in the 65nm 280 — I think I was justified in thinking so. But the Radeon 4850 came out a little later and jaws dropped. It offered nearly the performance of… → Read More
You may remember Matrox. They were a significant competitor back in the days when the graphics card scene was TNT2 vs. Voodoo3. The dark horse was always Matrox, whose dual-display-oriented cards always perplexed and intrigued me. I still don’t use more than one monitor but it’s far more common these days, with people like our own Doug, who is rocking I believe four monitors at this… → Read More
High Voltage Software are calling out Wii developers for not putting enough graphical oomph in their Wii games. High Voltage’s new Quantum3 engine supports many advanced graphical effects not being used by developers they say aren’t delivering. It’s a fair criticism – the draw to the Wii isn’t for its graphics, but do they really need to pale next to God of War? How… → Read More
If you’ve got $600 burning a hole in your pocket, maybe head on down to your nearby electronics superstore and throw down for the NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GX2. It’s got 256 processing cores on a single board and it’s “up to 60% faster than the closest competitor,” according to NVIDIA. It can be paired up with another 9800 GX2 in Quad SLI mode for Vista, just in case… → Read More
There was a big to-do yesterday with the release of the GeForce 9800 GX2, the dual-GPU supercard from Nvidia. Reviews were cautiously positive, but Bit-Tech had a mysterious problem: constant overheating. They did some testing and found that on some nForce 700 mobos (in their tests, the Asus Striker II), the placement of the nForce 200 chip made for a hot pocket of up to almost 200 degrees… → Read More
The first reviews are showing up for Nvidia’s beast of a single-slot card, the 9800 GX2. In case you don’t remember it from when it showed on the scene, the GX2 is basically a pair of 8800s in a native SLI, one-PCI-express slot configuration. It costs an arm and a leg (~$600) and it’s very, very powerful. And how does it stand up? The consensus seems to be that the 9800 GX2… → Read More
I don’t plan on upgrading just yet, especially considering how much this thing is certain to cost, but if the performance of the 9600 is any indication, this new line is going to be great. 512MB of 0.8ns DDR3 memory with a 256-bit interface, nice high clock speeds, and a new architecture, looks like a winner. It also supports 3-way SLI, which I’m sure is as over-the-top as it sounds. → Read More
What with the GS, GT, GTS, and GTX, it’s hard to keep straight on what exactly the offerings are from the current champion of the video card world. But one thing you can count on is that at every price point there will be an ATi and Nvidia card duking it out. At the highly contested $200 serious/casual sweet spot, you have the Radeon HD 3850 and now, this 8800GS, a somewhat stripped-down… → Read More
Sure, why not? NVIDIA’s just announced 3-way SLI and is now one step closer to having your entire case filled with video cards. According to the company, "Now hot, new, graphics-intensive titles, such as Call of Duty 4, Company of Heroes Opposing Fronts, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, and Unreal Tournament 3, can be played at the highest resolution possible, with all the graphics settings… → Read More
Good timing, guys. The graphics giant has changed up the architecture on its popular, high-performing, mid-range 8800GTS line. I have one and I can tell you it’s a great card (it actually does run Crysis) but I’m mad that they’ve tweaked it so soon after I laid down the cash. This is probably in response to a poor reception to its 640MB 8800GTS, which had very little performance… → Read More
I’m of the mindset that you shouldn’t think about getting a tattoo and that you should just do it. If you begin to second guess yourself, well, then, it just won’t happen. Know what you want before hand and then just do it. Of course, you should find a good artist to begin with instead of some hack in St. Mark’s Place. It’s better to pay a bit more when getting… → Read More
AMD’s newly-announced FireStream technology was announced earlier today and is being touted as the first of its kind to contain a double-precision floating point. The technology is based on ATI’s Radeon graphics card line and the new chips will cost $2000 a pop. The floating point, as you’ll remember from gradeschool, “is a numerical-representation system in which a string… → Read More
Which system has the better graphics, the Xbox 360 or the PlayStation 3? Clearly it’s an important topic that needs to be addressed and GameSpot did just that. This is the second graphics comparison it has done, coming six months after the first. The idea is that, six months ago, the PS3 was still shiny and new and relatively unknown to developers in comparison to the already year-old Xbox… → Read More
When it comes to discrete graphics cards it’s either feast or famine. You either spend five million on a super-duper card or your poke along in Civ IV with whatever Dell sent you when you bought your PC, knowing that you’ll never see the Legion’s armor in its full DX10 graphical glory. NVidia is introducting a sub-$100 GeForce 8400 next week that should change all that. The card… → Read More
Wacom impressed us at NAB with a preview of its new Bamboo mini-graphics pad, and that Bamboo will ship later this month at only $140. For those who might not be familiar with the concept, Wacom’s pads plug into your PC or Mac’s USB port and act as a graphical input device: You draw with a special stylus, and the pad-aware software on your computer (Illustrator, for example) responds. → Read More
It had to happen. Just when you’ve saved up enough money for dual-SLI cards, Nvidia is going to announce the availability of SLI x3. Rumor has it Nvidia will be announcing the new technology sometime at the end of Feb.—just in time for CeBIT. The question is, how long will it take for mobos to begin appearing with three PCI-E slots? And more importantly, how much would such… → Read More
Take a look at this screengrab from an AMD machine running Linux. What are we seeing? Wobbly, transparent windows, hot UI effects, an amazing 3D task switcher, and enough eye-candy to make Vista Ultimate look like Midnight Commander. I’m not saying we all go out and pick up a copy of Ubuntu, but maybe that’s actually what I’m saying. What is this machine running? An older GeForce… → Read More
So, AMD’s ownership of ATI now means that anywhere you once put the graphics chip-maker’s products, you’ll now be putting in AMD. In this case, it’s the newly available ATI Radeon X1900 G5 Mac Edition. The card is your best option for delivering high-end 3D graphics performance to an older Power Mac desktop with a x16 PCI Express slot. For $349, you get 36 pixel shader… → Read More
I do so love a bit of healthy competition. Nvidia announced today it will purchase chip-maker PortalPlayer for $357 million. PortalPlayer, which supplied Apple chips for its iPods up until this April when Apple switched suppliers, specializes in high-performance system-on-chip (SoC) technology designed for use in mobile media players. With Nvidia’s graphics know-how and PortalPlayer’s… → Read More
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