GDC 2013: AMD Reveals Radeon Sky Specifications

Subject: Graphics Cards | March 31, 2013 - 03:06 AM | Tim Verry
Tagged: GDC 13, sky 900, sky 700, sky 500, RapidFire, radeon sky, GCN, cloud gaming, amd

Earlier this week, AMD announced a new series of Radeon-branded cards–called Radeon Sky–aimed at the cloud gaming market. At the time, details on the cards was scarce apart from the fact that the cards would use latency-reduction "secret sauce" tech called RapidFire, and the highest-end model would be the Radeon Sky 900. Thankfully, gamers will not have to wait until AFDS after all, as AMD has posted additional information and specifications to its website. At this point, pricing and the underlying details of RapidFire are the only aspects still unknown.

According to the AMD site, the company will release three Radeon Sky cards later this year, called Sky 500, Sky 700, and Sky 900. All three cards are passively cooled with aluminum fin heatsinks and are based on AMD's Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture. At the high end is the Sky 900, which is a dual Tahiti graphics card clocked at 825 MHz. The Sky 900 features 1,792 stream processors per GPU for a total of 3,584. The card further features 3GB of GDDR5 RAM per GPU on a 384-bit interface for a total GPU bandwidth of 480GB/s. AMD claims this dual slot card draws up to 300W while under load. In many respects the Sky 900 is the Radeon-equivalent to the company's professional FirePro S10,000 graphics card. It has similar hardware specifications (including the 5.91TFLOPS of single precision performance potential), but a higher TDP. It is also $3,599, though whether AMD will price the gaming-oriented Sky 900 similarly is unknown.

The Sky 700 steps down to a single-GPU graphics card. This card features a single Tahiti GPU clocked at 900 MHz with 1792 stream processors and 6GB of GDDR5. The graphics card memory uses a 384-bit memory interface for a total memory bandwidth of 264GB/s. Although also a dual slot card like the Sky 900, the cooler is smaller and it draws only 225W under load.

Finally, the Sky 500 represents the low end of the company's cloud gaming hardware lineup. It is the Radeon Sky equivalent to the company's consumer-grade Radeon HD 7870. The Sky 500 features a single Pitcairn GPU clocked at 950 MHz with 1280 stream processors, 4GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit memory bus, and a rated 150W power draw under load. It further features 154GB/s of memory bandwidth and is a single slot graphics card.

Additionally, the Radeon Sky cards all employ a technology called RapidFire that allegedly reduces latency immensely. As Ryan mentioned on the latest PC Perspective Podcast, the Radeon Sky cards are able to stream up to six games. RapidFire is still a mystery, but the company has indicated that one aspect of RapidFire is the use of AMD's Video Encoding Engine (VCE) to encode the video stream on the GPU itself to reduce game latency. The Sky cards will output at 720p resolutions, and the Sky 700 can support either three games at 60 FPS or six games at 30 FPS.

In addition to working with cloud gaming companies Ubitus, G-Cluster, CiiNow, and Otoy, AMD has announced a partnership with VMWare and Citrix. AMD is reportedly working to allow VMWare ESX/ESXi and Citrix XenServer virtual machines to access the GPU hardware directly, which opens up the possibility of using Sky cards to run workstation applications or remote desktops with 3D support much like NVIDIA's VCA and GRID technology (which the company showed off at GTC last week). Personally, I think the Sky cards may be late to the party but is a step in the right direction. Even if cloud gaming doesn't take off, the cards could still be used to great success by enterprise customers if they are able to allow direct access to the full graphics card hardware from within virtual machines!

More information on the Radeon Sky cards can be found on the AMD website.

GDC 2013: Sony Reveals Additional Details About PS4 Hardware

Subject: General Tech | March 31, 2013 - 02:21 AM | Tim Verry
Tagged: sony, ps4, playstation eye, playstation 4, gaming, dualshock 4, APU, amd

Sony teased a few more details about its upcoming PlayStation 4 console at the Games Developer's Conference earlier this week. While the basic specifications have not changed since the original announcement, we now know more about the X86 console hardware.

The PS4 itself is powered by an AMD Jaguar CPU with eight physical cores and eight threads. Each core gets 32 KB L1 I-cache and D-cache. Further, each group of four physical cores shares 2 MB of L2 cache, for 4MB total L2. The processor is capable of Out of Order Execution, as are AMDs other processor offerings. The console also reportedly features 8GB of GDDR5 memory that is shared by the CPU and GPU. It offers 176 GB/s of bandwidth, and is a step above the PS3 which did not use a unified memory design. The system will also sport a faster GPU rated at 1.843 TFLOPS, and clocked at 800MHz. The PS3 will have a high-capacity hard drive and a new Blu-ray drive that is up to 3-times faster. Interestingly, the console also has a co-processor that allows the system to process the video streaming features and allow the Remote Play game streaming to the PlayStation Vita at its native resolution of 960x554.

The PlayStation Eye has also been upgraded with the PS4 to include 2 cameras, four microphones, and a 3-axis accelerometer. The Eye cameras have an 85-degree field of view, and can record video at 1280x800 at 60 Hz and 12 bits per pixel or 640x480 and 120Hz. The new PS4 Eye is a noteworthy upgrade to the current generation model which is limited to either 640x480 pixels at 60Hz or 320x240 pixels at 120Hz. The extra resolution should allow developers to be more accurate. The DualShock 4 controllers sport a light-bar that can be tracked by the new Eye camera, for example. The light-bar on the controllers uses an RGB LED that changes to blue, red, pink, or green for players 1-4 respectively.

Speaking of the new DualShock 4, Sony has reportedly ditched the analog face buttons and D-pad for digital buttons. With the DS3 and the PS3, the analog face buttons and D-pad came in handy with racing games, but otherwise they are not likely to be missed. The controllers will now charge even when the console is in standby mode, and the L2 and R2 triggers are more resistant to accidental pressure. The analog sticks have been slightly modified and feature a reduced dead zone. The touchpad, which is a completely new feature for the DualShock lineup, is capable of tracking 2 points at a resolution of 1920x900–which is pretty good.

While Sony has still not revealed what the actual PS4 console will look like, most of the internals are now officially known. It will be interesting to see just where Sony prices the new console, and where game developers are able to take it. Using a DX11.1+ feature set, developers are able to use many of the same tools used to program PC titles but also have additional debugging tools and low level access to the hardware. A new low level API below DirectX, but above the driver level gives developers deeper access to the shader pipeline. I'm curious to see how PC ports will turn out, with the consoles now running X86 hardware, I'm hoping that the usual fare of bugs common to ported titles from consoles to PCs will decrease–a gamer can dream, right?

Read more about the upcoming PlayStation 4 (PS4) at PC Perspective.

SuperSSpeed mixess Intel SSLC and SSandforce

Subject: Storage | March 28, 2013 - 04:15 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: SuperSSpeed, S301 Hyper Gold, ssd, slc, SandForce SF-2281

SuperSSpeed is mixing the performance and endurance of SLC flash storage with the lower cost of the SandForce SF-2281 in an attempt to bring the price of their SLC drive to an affordable level for the consumer.  The mix seems a good idea as the reduced write latency of SLC flash may help to overcome SandForce's weakness when writing incompressible data.  [H]ard|OCP's testing bears this out as the drive kept up with a larger Samsung 840 Pro, one of the current performance kings.  You will pay for the privilege however as the 128GB drive currently retails for $250 as SLC flash is not cheap.  Consider that in almost any casual usage scenario, you are never going to push this drive to its limits ... unless you are going to start your own Frame Rating machine.

"The SuperSSpeed S301 128GB SLC SSD brings SLC flash into the consumer market. The extreme endurance and excellent write performance makes for an interesting SSD powered by the SandForce SF-2281 controller. The Intel 25nm SLC NAND removes much of the Achilles heel of the SandForce processors, delivering consistent performance."

Here are some more Storage reviews from around the web:

Storage

• OCZ Vertex 3.20 – Vertex 3 updated to 20nm @ Bjorn3D
• OCZ Vertex 3.20 120GB Solid State Drive Review @ Pro-Clockers
• OCZ Vertex 3 .20 120GB SSD @ Tweaktown
• OCZ Vertex 3 .20 240GB SSD @ Tweaktown
• KingFast Ultra-Cache K13 & K25 SATA2 SSD Review @ ModSynergy
• Kingston V300 120GB SSD Review @ HCW
• Kingston V300 120GB SSD @ Bjorn3D
• Intel 335 Series 180GB SSD Review @ Hardware Canucks
• The SSD Review SSD Database Is Live
• ADATA DashDrive Air AE400 Wireless Storage Device @ Tweaktown
• Kingston DataTraveller Ultimate 3.0 G3 64GB USB3.0 Flash Drive @ Tweaktown
• Kingston HyperX Predator 512GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive @ Tweaktown
• QNAP TS-469L @ Legion Hardware
• G-Technology G-Drive Mobile USB 1TB USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive Review @ NikKTech
• OWC Mercury On-The-Go Pro USB 3.0 Portable Enclosure Kit Review @ Madshrimps
• ADATA DashDrive HV610 External Hard Drive @ Tweaktown
• ADATA DashDrive Durable HD710 External Hard Drive @ Tweaktown

Podcast #244 - Frame Rating Launch, HD 7790 vs. GTX 650Ti BOOST, and news from GDC

Subject: General Tech | March 28, 2013 - 03:47 PM | Ken Addison
Tagged: sli, podcast, pcper, nvidia, kepler, HD7790, GTX 560Ti BOOST, GCN, frame rating, crossfire, amd

PC Perspective Podcast #244 - 03/28/2013

Join us this week as we discuss the launch of Frame Rating, HD 7790 vs. GTX 650Ti BOOST, and news from GDC

You can subscribe to us through iTunes and you can still access it directly through the RSS page HERE.

The URL for the podcast is: http://pcper.com/podcast - Share with your friends!

• iTunes - Subscribe to the podcast directly through the iTunes Store
• RSS - Subscribe through your regular RSS reader
• MP3 - Direct download link to the MP3 file

Hosts: Ryan Shrout, Jeremy Hellstrom, Josh Walrath, and Allyn Malventano

This Podcast is brought to you by MSI!

Program length: 1:19:22

1. Week in Review:
   1. 0:01:10 AMD Radeon HD 7790 Review - Sea Islands and Bonaire Make an Appearance
   2. 0:09:15 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti BOOST 2GB Graphics Card Review - Revised GK106
   3. 0:16:00 ARM Mali Graphics Interview: Digging into the graphics side of ARM
2. 0:22:20 This Podcast is brought to you by MSI!
3. 0:23:10 Frame Rating Dissected: Full Details on Capture-based Graphics Performance Testing
4. News items of interest:
   1. 1:00:00 Is there a Flash flood coming?
   2. 1:03:45 GDC 2013: AMD Announces Sky Graphics Cards to Accelerate Cloud Gaming
   3. 1:05:00 GDC 13: Intel announces PixelSync and InstantAccess
5. 1:12:00 Hardware/Software Picks of the Week:
   1. Ryan: MGSV? VisionDVI-DL
   2. Jeremy: Bored, tired and have a weak WiFi signal?
   3. Josh: Too bad it doesn't have a more adjustable stand
   4. Allyn: Samsung 840 250GB for $147 on Buy.com (checkout price) (ends 3/31)
6. 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
7. http://pcper.com/podcast
8. http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
9. Closing/outro

Alienware Aurora r4 Core i7 Gaming Desktop (Liquid-cooled) w/ GeForce GTX 660 PowerHouse Desktop

Subject: General Tech | March 28, 2013 - 01:59 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: deals

Top deal

Alienware Aurora r4 Core i7 Gaming Desktop (Liquid-cooled) w/ GeForce GTX 660 for 1,299.00 with free shipping (normally $1,400.00 - use coupon code: LDLK0B2PNL0$32).

Featured $1,299 configuration includes Core i7-3820 Quad-core CPU (up to 4.1GHz clock speed, 10MB cache), 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD, 1.5GB GeForce GTX 660, 24X DVD Burner, and Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OS.

(Optional 4GB GDDR5 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 Graphics is now available on Alienware Aurora models.)

How is the Razer Edge not another N-Gage?

Subject: General Tech, Mobile | March 28, 2013 - 01:10 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: razer blade, gaming

You may remember Nokia's failed N-Gage, the phone that thought it was as console but turned out to be a failure; it seems that Razer is going to market with a similar product called the Blade.  This time we have a product that is a tablet with aspirations to console-hood as you can tell from the gamepad-type controls surrounding the 1366x768 10.1" screen.  Inside you will find an Intel Core i7 processor, a 256GB SSD, and 8GB of RAM all of which adds up to a heavy weight mobile device with not much in the way of battery life.  Gizmodo tried it out at GDC and played BioShock Infinite on Ultra with no problems whatsoever so the performance is there.  On the other hand can a $1500 gaming tablet compete with full Ultrabooks or streaming devices like Project SHIELD?

"A gaming laptop in a tablet. It's a thought experiment that raises a whole host of questions: Is that even possible? Can it possibly be good? Would anyone even want it if it were? And finally: How much does it cost? The Razer Edge's answers translate roughly to "Yes!", "Sort of.", "Maybe?", and "Erm, you better sit down.""

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk

• Oculus Rift developer kit hands-on video at GDC 2013, shown playing Hawken @ Tweaktown
• Intel to separate 3rd-generation ultrabooks into 3 price groups @ DigiTimes
• Microsoft's 'Gemini' project will be the Windows Blue of Office @ The Register
• ARM says GPGPUs could lower overall chip costs @ The Inquirer
• Blackberry has sold one million Blackberry Z10 smartphones @ The Inquirer
• IBM unfurls SDN network manager @ The Register
• BIGGEST DDoS ATTACK IN HISTORY hammers Spamhaus @ The Register
• How to Improve Your Wi-Fi Signal Using a Soda Can in 6 Steps @ MAKE:Blog
• Interview with Richard Huddy about Intel moving beyond DX @ Kitguru

Khronos Group Announces WebGL 1.0.2 Specification and Extensions, Formal Release Expected in April

Subject: General Tech | March 28, 2013 - 12:54 AM | Tim Verry
Tagged: webgl 1.0.2, webgl, web browser, tegra, programming

The Khronos Group recently announced that the WebGL 1.0.1 specification is compliant across mobile and desktop systems on a number of platforms. Chrome 25 and Firefox 19 support WebGL 1.0.1 on Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems. Further, mobile devices with Tegra SoCs can tap into WebGL using a WebGL-enhanced Android browser.

Additionally, the WebGL 1.0.2 specification and its extensions have been submitted for ratification, and is expected to be formally released in April. According to the press release, the following features are being rolled into the WebGL 1.0.2 specification:

• "adds many clarifications for specification behavioral precision
• mandates support for certain combinations of framebuffer formats, to ease developer adoption;
• clarifies interactions with the encompassing HTML5 platform, including the browser compositor and high-DPI displays;
• dramatically increases the number of conformance tests to roughly 21,000 to improve both the breadth and depth of test coverage - thanks principally to work by Gregg Tavares at Google and the OpenGL ES working group."

The WebGL working group has also submitted several optional extensions for ratifications along with the 1.0.2 spec. On the developer side of things is a JavaScript debugger for WebGL API calls and shaders, and functionality to communicate when a mobile device is powered off while WebGL is running. The other extension deals with adding additional 3D features from OpenGL ES 2.0 including anisotropic filtering (AF), vertex array objects, and standard derivative functions.

Khronos President and NVIDIA Vice President of Mobile Content Neil Trevett stated that "The close cooperation between browser and silicon vendors to ensure the GPU is being reliably and securely exposed to the Web is ongoing proof that Khronos is a highly productive forum to evolve this vital Web standard." Meanwhile, WebGL Working group chair Ken Russell indicated that WebGL 1.0.2 is "a major milestone in bringing the power of the GPU to the Web.”

Although there are security concerns to consider, WebGL does open up some interesting opportunities for new web services. The full press release can be found here.

Researchers Use New HC-PBGF Optical Fiber To Transmit Data At 99.7% The Speed of Light

Subject: General Tech | March 27, 2013 - 11:01 PM | Tim Verry
Tagged: Internet, hc-pbgf, fiber, data transmission

Transmitting data over optical fiber is one of the fastest methods available, and researchers at the University of Southampton have managed to dial up the speed even further.

Being optical in nature, light is used to transmit data over fiber. The speed of light through a vacuum is 299,792,458 meters per second, but traditional fiber is not nearly that fast due to light traveling approximately 31% slower (206,856,796.02 m/s) through silica glass than a vacuum.

The new fiber employs a hollow design that allows light to travel through air rather than glass while still allowing the cable to bend and twist around corners. The new fiber has been dubbed Hollow Core Photonic Bandgap Fiber, or HC-PBGF, and allows light to travel up to about 298,893,080.63 m/s (~99.7% the speed of light). Currently, the HC-PBGF fiber is still in the experimental phase, but it could have big implications for data centers and HPC server clusters that depend on high bandwidth, low latency connections between individual nodes.

Just how fast is the new HC-PBGF? According to ExtremeTech, a researcher told the site that the new fiber has a total cable throughput of 73.7 Tbps. It transmits 3 modes of 96 channels of 256 Gbps each using a combination of wave division multiplexing and mode division multiplexing. The fiber is 160nm and is noticeably faster than traditional fiber. Additionally, the HC-PBGF has a data loss of 3.5 dB/km which makes it a useful candidate for short runs between nodes or rows of racks, but not yet suitable for longer runs. HC-PBGF will not be blanketing your neighborhood anytime soon, but the research may lead to new optical networking technologies used in the next supercomputer or cloud service, for example.

The full paper can be found here, along with more details over at Ars Technica. Unfortunately, the full paper is behind a paywall but it may be worth seeing your school or work can give you access should you be interested in drilling into the details of the experimental hollow fiber,.

GDC 13: Intel announces PixelSync and InstantAccess

Subject: General Tech, Shows and Expos | March 27, 2013 - 08:51 PM | Scott Michaud
Tagged: Intel, GDC 13, GDC

GDC 2013 is where the industry comes together to talk about the technology itself. Intel was there, and of course the big blue just had to unveil developments to help them in the PC gaming space. Two new major rendering extensions and updated developer tools debut. And, if you are not a developer, encode your movies with handbrake quicker!

First up is PixelSync, a DirectX extension for Intel HD Graphics. PixelSync is designed to be used with smoke, hair, and other effects which require blending translucent geometry. With this extension, objects do not need to be sorted before compositing.

Next up is InstantAccess. This DirectX extension allows CPU and integrated GPUs to access the same physical memory. What interests me most about InstantAccess is the ability for developers to write GPU-based applications which can quickly access the same memory as its CPU counterpart. Should the integrated GPU be visible alongside discrete GPUs, this could allow the integrated graphics to help offload GPGPU tasks such as physics while the CPU and discrete GPU handle the more important tasks.

Also updated is their Graphics Performance Analyzers toolset. If you are interested in performance optimization on your software, be sure to check those out.

And for the more general public... Handbrake is now set up to take advantage of Quick Sync Video. Given the popularity of Handbrake, this is quite a big deal for anyone wishing to transcode video using popular and free encoders.

GDC 2013: AMD Announces Sky Graphics Cards to Accelerate Cloud Gaming

Subject: General Tech, Graphics Cards | March 27, 2013 - 08:16 PM | Tim Verry
Tagged: sky graphics, sky 900, RapidFire, radeon sky, pc gaming, GDC, cloud gaming, ciinow, amd

AMD is making a new push into cloud gaming with a new series of Radeon graphics cards called Sky. The new cards feature a (mysterious) technology called "RapidFire" that allegedly provides "highly efficient and responsive game streaming" from servers to your various computing devices (tablets, PCs, Smart TVs) over the Internet. At this year's Games Developers Conference (GDC), the company announced that it is working with a number of existing cloud gaming companies to provide hardware and drivers to reduce latency.

AMD is working with Otoy, G-Cluster, Ubitus, and CiiNow. CiiNow in particular was heavily discussed by AMD, and can reportedly provide lower latency than cloud gaming competitor Gaikai. AMD Sky is, in many ways, similar in scope to NVIDIA's GRID technology which was announced last year and shown off at GTC last week. Obviously, that has given NVIDIA a head start, but it is difficult to say how AMD's technology will stack up as the company is not yet providing any specifics. Joystiq was able to obtain information on the high-end Radeon Sky graphics card, however (that's something at least...). The Sky 900 reportedly features 3,584 stream processors, 6GB of GDDR5 RAM, and 480 GB/s of bandwidth. Further, AMD has indicated that the new Radeon Sky cards will be based on the company's Graphics Core Next architecture.

I think it is safe to assume that the Sky cards will be sold to other cloud gaming companies. They will not be consumer cards, and AMD is not going to get into the cloud gaming business itself. Beyond that, AMD's Sky cloud gaming initiative is still a mystery. Hopefully more details will filter out between now and the AMD Fusion Developer Summit this summer.

XFX claims there is something different about their ProSeries 650W

Subject: Cases and Cooling | March 27, 2013 - 03:17 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: xfx, PSU, ProSeries 650W

The XFX ProSeries 650W PSU is mostly modular, with only the ATX connector attached, has a 135mm cooling fan and can send 98% of its total wattage to the single 53A 12V rail.  With four 6+2 PCIe power connectors you will be able to handle multiple GPUs and the 8 SATA connectors should allow you as many storage devices as you need.  Unfortunately [H]ard|OCP discovered something about the 5 year warranty which greatly displeased them; unless you register your PSU within 30 days of purchase, you only receive a 2 year warranty.  If you are strictly concerned about the quality of the power this PSU delivers and are ambivalent towards the warranty, this PSU passed [H]'s torture tests handily which is something not every PSU can claim.

"XFX has long and actually very solid history of producing high quality enthusiast power supplies. We have consistently found XFX PSUs worthy of [H] Editor's Choice Awards. Today the XFX ProSeries 650W promises "One Rail, One Setup" in a PSU that is different. Let's see if that is good or bad."

Here are some more Cases & Cooling reviews from around the web:

CASES & COOLING

• Cooler Master Silent Pro M2 1000W PSU Review @ Hi Tech Legion
• NZXT Hale 90 V2 1000 Watt Power Supply @ Modders-Inc
• Zalman ZM500-GS / ZM500-GT PSU @ Hardware.info
• Cougar PowerX 550 W @ techPowerUp
• Cougar PowerX 550W Power Supply Unit Review @ NikKTech
• Fractal Design Newton R3 800 W Power Supply Review @ Hardware Secrets
• SilverStone Strider Plus 600 W (ST60F-PS) Power Supply Review @ Hardware Secrets
• Enermax Triathlor FC 550 W @ techPowerUp
• Thermaltake Toughpower Grand Platinum 700-Watt 80 PLUS Platinum @ Tweaktown
• AZZA Platinum 1000-Watt 80 PLUS Platinum @ Tweaktown
• Silverstone Zeus 1350-Watt 80 PLUS @ Tweaktown
• NZXT HALE90 V2 850 W Power Supply Review @ Hardware Secrets
• Antec High Current Pro Platinum 1000W Power Supply Unit Review @ NikKTech
• Thermaltake Dr.Power II ATX Power Supply Tester @ Modders-Inc
• Cooler Master 120W NA 120 Universal AC Adapter Review @ Hi Tech Legion
• eXtreme Power Supply Calculator Update

Of Pinkertons, Comstock, the Songbird and Columbia

Subject: General Tech | March 27, 2013 - 02:42 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: gaming, bioshock infinite

After the long wait, BioShock: Infinite is here, not as a sequel but carrying forward some of the atmosphere of the first two out of the water and into the clouds.  The reviews are positive, both in terms of game play and story line, as you can see by Rock, Paper, SHOTGUN's preview of the game here.  That particular article is spoiler free, not revealing any secrets that those following the release already know, but you can also venture into spoiler territory if you wish as they have already published some feedback about subplots they would have liked to see fleshed out more.  For those jsut about to start playing they offer some tweaks to improve your experience, including the all important FOV hack, as well as a Konami-ish code to unlock sadistic mode immediately.

"BioShock: Infinite is a new first-person shooter from Irrational, creators of BioShock, System Shock 2 and SWAT 4. It’s set on a flying city in 1912, where racism and religious fundamentalism dictate society. You’re up there, wielding guns and magic, to bring someone the girl and wipe away the debt. Here’s what I thought, spoiler-free."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Gaming

• BioShock Infinite review: In the sky, Lord, in the sky @ Ars Technica
• A Look at Duke Nukem 3D Megaton Edition @ Techgage
• WARFACE Puts Its War In Your Face @ Rock, Paper, SHOTGUN
• Tripwire’s Rising Storm Whips Up A Trailer @ Rock, Paper, SHOTGUN
• Age Of Wonders III First Footage @ Rock, Paper, SHOTGUN
• First Look: Space Hulk @ Rock, Paper, SHOTGUN

Grab a sprite and take a graphical trip down memory lane

Subject: General Tech | March 27, 2013 - 01:21 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: gpu, history, get off my lawn

TechSpot has jsut published an article looking at the history of the GPU over the past decades, from the first NTSC capable cards, through the golden 3DFX years straight through to the modern GPGPU.  There have been a lot of standards over the years such as MDA, CGA and EGA as well as different interfaces like ISA, the graphic card specific AGP to our current PCIe standard.  The first article in this four part series takes us from 1976 through to 1995 and the birth of the Voodoo series of accelerators.  Read on to bring back memories or perhaps to encounter some of this history for the first time.

"The evolution of the modern graphics processor begins with the introduction of the first 3D add-in cards in 1995, followed by the widespread adoption of the 32-bit operating systems and the affordable personal computer. While 3D graphics turned a fairly dull PC industry into a light and magic show, they owe their existence to generations of innovative endeavour. Over the next few weeks we'll be taking an extensive look at the history of the GPU, going from the early days of 3D consumer graphics, to the 3Dfx Voodoo game-changer, the industry's consolidation at the turn of the century, and today's modern GPGPU."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk

• The Do-It-Yourself All-In-One Computer Standard from Intel @ Hardware Secrets
• What is Windows Blue? @ TechReviewSource
• Mozilla Firefox OS on Dreamfone video demo @ The Inquirer
• Google Keep hands-on @ The Inquirer
• Whoops! Tiny bug in NetBSD 6.0 code ruins SSH crypto keys @ The Register

Corsair Adds Dolby Support to Vengeance 2000 Gaming Headset with Free Software Driver

Subject: General Tech | March 27, 2013 - 12:47 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: vengeance 2000, corsair, gaming headset, dolby, audio

Corsair is offering a way to add even more to their Vengeance 2000 wireless gaming headset.  They have a brushed aluminum headband, 50mm drivers and microfiber earcups, plus have the benefit of being completely wireless but now they can also support two new Dolby features thanks to a driver update.  Get more from your headset for free from Corsair, or pick up a pair for $100 if you are in the market for new headphones.

Fremont, California — March 27, 2013 — Corsair, a worldwide designer and supplier of high-performance components to the PC gaming hardware market, today announced the release of a free software driver update which adds Dolby Headphone 2.0 and Dolby Pro Logic IIx to the Vengeance 2000 wireless gaming headset. The addition of Dolby Headphone to the Vengeance 2000 improves both surround sound quality and game compatibility. The software driver is immediately available for download www.corsair.com.

Vengeance 2000 Wireless 7.1 Gaming Headset: Untethered gaming with amazing audio fidelity
The Vengeance 2000 7.1 Wireless gaming headset uses rock-solid 2.4GHz wireless that frees and untangles gamers with battery life up to ten hours and a range up to 40 feet. Whether it’s a 5.1 or 7.1 audio source, the headset’s optimized HRTF positional audio technology gives gamers an edge with precise information about the location of opponents. The Vengeance 2000 also features custom-engineered 50mm drivers and careful acoustic tuning for audiophile-grade sound with superior clarity and tight bass response. For immersive audio and hours-long comfort the Vengeance 2000 employs circumaural, micro-fiber memory foam earpads and a padded headband. The high-sensitivity, noise-cancelling microphone increases effective team play. The headset comes with a Micro-USB charge cable that can also provide power if the battery runs low.

Dolby Headphone 2.0 and Dolby Pro Logic IIx
Dolby Headphone is a revolutionary signal processing technology that delivers up to 7.1-channel surround sound over headphones for richer, more spacious headphone audio. Dolby Pro Logic IIx processes native stereo- and 5.1-channel material to produce 6.1 or 7.1 output channels.

The new Vengeance 2000 software driver is available for download on the Vengeance 2000 product page on Corsair.com.

GDC 13: 17 Minute Battlefield 4 Trailer Released

Subject: Editorial, General Tech, Shows and Expos | March 27, 2013 - 03:25 AM | Scott Michaud
Tagged: battlefield, battlefield 4, GDC, GDC 13

Battlefield 4 is coming, that has been known with Medal of Honor: Warfighter's release and its promise of beta access, but the gameplay trailer is already here. Clocking in at just over 17 minutes, "Fishing in Baku" looks amazing from a technical standpoint.

The video has been embed below. A little not safe for work due to language and amputation.

Now that you finished gawking, we have gameplay to discuss. I cannot help but be disappointed with the campaign direction. Surely, the story was in planning prior to the release of Battlefield 3. Still, it seems to face the same generic-character problem which struck the last campaign.

In Battlefield 3, I really could not recognize many characters apart from the lead which made their deaths more confusing than upsetting. Normally when we claim a character is identifiable, we mean that we can relate to them. In this case, when I say the characters were not identifiable, I seriously mean that I probably could not pick them out in a police lineup.

Then again, the leaked promotional image for Battlefield 4 seems to show Blackburn at the helm. I guess there is some hope. Slim hope, which the trailer does not contribute to. I mean even the end narration capped how pointless the character interactions were. All this in spite of EA's proclaiming YouTube description of this being human, dramatic, and believable.

Oh well, it went boom good.

Xi3's SFF PISTON Gaming Console Now Available for Pre-Order

Subject: General Tech | March 27, 2013 - 12:06 AM | Tim Verry
Tagged: Xi3, valve, Steam Box, piston, pc gaming, gaming

It may or may not be Valve's Steam Box, but Xi3 is the closest thing to a small form factor PC gaming console running Steam on the radar so far. The Xi3 PISTON is now up for pre-order with an intended holiday 2013 launch.

The PISTON starts at $899 and increases in price from there depending on the amount of internal storage included. Basic specifications of the Piston include an AMD APU (likely the A10-4600M) clocked at 2.3GHz (3.2GHz turbo), Radeon 7660G processor graphics (384 shaders), 8GB of DDR3 RAM, and a 128GB solid state drive. For an extra $340, Xi3 will swap in a 256GB SSD, and for $750 the company will include a 512GB option. Of course, that would bring the price of the living room TV up to $1649, which is far from cheap.

For that kind of money you could build a much more powerful mid tower that could actually run Steam games at 1080p with all the details cranked up. The Xi3 box will be lucky to average 30FPS at 1080p with the latest games. With that said, it is a start and I hope to see continued development of these "Steam Box-esque PCs. Hopefully once mass production, competing options, and economies of scale kick in, consumers will be able to get their hands on cheaper Steam Boxes!

If you can't wait for the official Steam Box, however, you can head over to the Xi3 website to reserve your own PISTON.

GTC 2013: Fuzzy Logix Launches Tanay Rx for GPU Accelerating Analytic Models Programmed In R

Subject: General Tech | March 26, 2013 - 11:40 PM | Tim Verry
Tagged: GTC 2013, gpu analytics, gpgpu, fuzzy logix

Fuzzy Logix, a company that specializes in HPC data analytics, recently unveiled a new extension (to the Tanay Zx library) called Tanay Rx that will GPU accelerate analytic models written in R. R is a programming language commonly used by statisticians. It is reportedly relatively easy to program, but has an inherent lack of multi-threading performance and memory limitations. With Tanay Rx, Fuzzy Logix is hoping to combine the performance benefits of its Tanay Zx libraries with the simplicity of R programming. According to Fuzzy Logix, Tanay Rx is "the perfect prescription to cure performance issues with R."

Tanay Zx allowed the use of many programming languages to run models with .net, .dll, or shared object calls on the GPU, and the new Tanay Rx extension extends that functionality to statistical and analytic models run using R. Models include those data intensive tasks as matrix operations, Monte Carlo simulations, data mining, financial mathematics (equities, fixed income, and time series analysis). Fuzzy Logix claims to enable R users to run over 500 analytic models up to 10 to 100-times faster by harnessing the parallel processing power of graphics and accelerator cards such as NVIDIA's Quadro/Tesla cards, Intel's MIC, and AMD's FirePro cards.

As an example, Fuzzy Logix states that calculations for intra-day risk of equity, interest rate, and FX options amount to approximately 1 billion future scenarios can be performed in milliseconds on the GPU. While some conversions may be more intensive, certain aspects of R code can be sped-up by replacing R functions with Fuzzy Logix' own Tanay Rx functions.

As per Fuzzy Logix's website.

Industry solutions implementing Tanay Rx for the financial, healthcare, internet marketing, pharmaceutical, oil, gas, insurance, and other sectors are available now. More information on the company's approach to GPGPU analytics is available here.

NVIDIA Boosts the Sub-$200 market with the GTX 650 Ti Boost

Subject: Graphics Cards | March 26, 2013 - 07:41 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: nvidia, hd 7790, gtx 650 ti boost, gtx 650 Ti, gpu boost, gk106

Why Boost you may ask?  If you guessed that NVIDIA added their new Boost Clock feature to the card you should win a prize as that is exactly what makes the GTX 650Ti special.  With a core GPU speed of 980MHz, boosting to 1033MHz and beyond this card is actually aimed to compete with AMD's HD7850, not the newly released HD7790, at least the 2GB model is.  Along with the boost in clock comes a wider memory pipeline and a corresponding increase in ROPs.  The 2GB model should be about $170, right on the cusp between value and mid-range but is the price worth admission?  Get a look at the performance at [H]ard|OCP.

"NVIDIA is launching the GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost today. This video card is priced in the $149-$169 price range, and should give the $150 price segment another shakedown. Does it compare to the Radeon HD 7790, or is it on the level of the more expensive Radeon HD 7850? We will find out in today's latest games, you may be surprised."

Here are some more Graphics Card articles from around the web:

Graphics Cards

• Nvidia's GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost @ The Tech Report
• Nvidia GTX 650 Ti Boost 2GB @ LanOC Reviews
• NVIDIA and EVGA GeForce GTX 650 Ti BOOST Video Card Review @ Legit Reviews
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650Ti Boost Review @ OCC
• Nvidia GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost @ Hardware.info
• Nvidia GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost @ Bjorn3D
• NVIDIA Geforce GTX 650Ti Boost 2GB Edition Review @Hi Tech Legion
• EVGA GTX 650Ti BOOST 2GB Superclocked Review @Hi Tech Legion
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost 2GB @ Tweaktown
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost 2 GB @ techPowerUp
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti BOOST @ Benchmark Reviews
• NVIDIA GTX 650 Ti Boost 2GB Review @ Hardware Canucks
• NVIDIA Chips Comparison Table @ Hardware Secrets
• AMD ATI Chips Comparison Table @ Hardware Secrets
• Workstation Graphics Card Comparison Guide @ TechARP
• PowerColor Radeon HD 7790 Turbo Duo Review @ OCC
• PowerColor HD 7790 Turbo Duo 1 GB @ techPowerUp
• Sapphire HD7950 MAC Edition @ Kitguru