PCPer Live! Tomb Raider Game Stream - Win Games and Graphics Cards from AMD!

Subject: Graphics Cards | March 4, 2013 - 04:31 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: video, tomb raider, tahiti, radeon, never settle reloaded, live, crysis, amd

UPDATE: Missed the live stream?  Relive the incredible experience right here!  

On March 5th on the PC Perspective Live! page we will be streaming some game action of the new Tomb Raider.  In what might be one of the most impressive game series reboots in history, this iteration of the action-adventure gameplay is definitely the most impressive looking to date.  And don't forget all the hair animation we are likely to see...

We will be teaming up with AMD once again to provide a fun and exciting PCPer Game Stream that includes game demonstrations and of course, prizes and game keys for those that watch the event LIVE! 

UPDATE: We are excited to announce that Crystal Dynamics' Brian Horton, Senior Art Director for Tomb Raider, will be joining us on the PC Perpsective Game Stream to answer questions and to give us more detail on the visual effects at work in the PC version of the game!

Tomb Raider Game Stream

5pm PT / 8pm ET - March 5th

PC Perspective Live! Page

Warning: this one will DEFINITELY have mature language and content!!

The stream will be sponsored by AMD and its Never Settle Reloaded game bundles which we previously told you about.  Depending on the AMD Radeon HD 7000 series GPU that you buy, you could get some amazing free games including:

• Radeon HD 7900 Series
  • FREE Crysis 3
  • FREE Bioshock Infinite
• Radeon HD 7800 Series
  • FREE Bioshock Infinite
  • FREE Tomb Raider
• Radeon HD 7900 CrossFire Set
  • FREE Crysis 3
  • FREE Bioshock Infinite
  • FREE Tomb Raider
  • FREE Far Cry 3
  • FREE Hitman: Absolution
  • FREE Sleeping Dogs

AMD's Antal Tungler (@ColoredRocks on twitter) will be joining us via Skype to talk about the game's technology, performance considerations as well as helping me with some co-op gaming!

Of course, just to sweeten the deal a bit we have some prizes lined up for those of you that participate in our Tomb Raider Game Stream:

• 2 x Gigabyte Radeon HD 7870 OC 2GB graphics cards (plus Tomb Raider & Bioshock Infinite)
• 1 x HIS 7850 iPower IceQ Turbo 4GB graphics card (plus Tomb Raider & Bioshock Infinite)
• 3 x Combo codes for both Tomb Raider AND Bioshock Infinite

Pretty nice, huh?  All you have to do to win is be present on the PC Perspective Live! Page during the event as we will announce both the content/sweepstakes method AND the winners!

Stop in on March 5h for some PC gaming fun!!

AMD Releases the FIREPRO R5000: PCoIP and Teradici

Subject: Graphics Cards | February 27, 2013 - 09:42 PM | Josh Walrath
Tagged: workstations, virtualization, Teradici, remote management, R5000, pitcairn, PCoIP, firepro, amd

A few days back AMD released one of their latest FIREPRO workstation graphics cards.  For most users out there this will be received with a bit of a shrug.  This release is a bit different though, and it reflects a change in direction in the PC market.  The original PC freed users from mainframes and made computing affordable for most people.  Today we are seemingly heading back to the mainframe/thin client setup of yore, but with hardware and connectivity that obviously was not present in the late 70s.  The FIREPRO R5000 is hoping to redefine remote graphics.

Today’s corporate environment is chaotic when it comes to IT systems.  The amount of malware, poor user decisions, and variability in software and hardware configurations is a constant headache to IT workers.  A big push it to make computing more centralized in the company with easy oversight from IT workers.  Servers with multiple remote users can be more easily updated and upgraded than going to individual PCs around the offices to do the same work.  This is good for a lot of basic users, but it does not address the performance needs of power users who typically run traditional workstations.

AMD hopes to change that thinking with the R5000.  This is a Pitcairn based product (7800 series on the desktop) that is built to workstation standards.  It also features a secret weapon; the Teradici TERA2240 host processor.  Teradici is a leader in PCoIP technology.  PCoIP is simply “PC over IP”.  Instead of a traditional remote host which limits performance and desktop space, Teradici developed PCoIP to more adequately send large amounts of pixel data over a network.  The user essentially is able to leverage the power of a modern GPU rather than rely on the more software based rendering of remote sessions.  The user has a thin client provided by a variety of OEMs to choose from and they connect directly over IP.

The advantages here is that the GPU is again used to its full potential, which is key for those doing heavy video editing work, 3D visualization, and CADD type workloads.  The latest R5000 can support resolutions up to 2560x1600 up to two displays.  The same card can support 1920x1200 on four displays.  It supports upwards of 60 fps in applications.  The TERA2240 essentially encodes the output and streams it over IP.  The thin client re-encodes the stream and displays the results.  This promises very low latency over smaller networks, and very manageable latency over large or wide area networks.

The downside here is that one client at a time can connect to the card.  The card cannot be virtualized as such so that multiple users can access the resources of the GPU.  The card CAN run in a virtualized environment, but it is again limited to one client per card.  Multiple cards can be placed in each server and the hardware is then placed in its own VM.  While this makes management of hardware a bit easier, it still is an expensive solution when it comes to a per user basis.  Where efficiency may be regained is when it is placed in an environment where shift work takes place.   Or another setting is a University where these cards are housed in high powered servers away from classrooms so cooling and sound are not issues impeding learning.

AMD and Crystal Dynamics Use TressFX to bring GPU Compute to Hair Simulation

Subject: Graphics Cards | February 26, 2013 - 10:04 AM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: amd, tressfx, lara croft, tomb raider, crystal dynamics

Last week we got an email from AMD teasing an upcoming technology called TressFX that had something to do with hair and something to do with graphics.  It should come as no surprise today that AMD has announced that TressFX is a hair modeling technology that utilized DirectCompute for simulation.  The proper rendering of hair has been a thorn in the side of game developers for decades now and it seems that with every generation of GPU released by either NVIDIA or AMD/ATI we would see a tech demo about how hair modeling "has been changed forever."

This time though, we are seeing the technology in a AAA gaming title.

TressFX Hair revolutionizes Lara Croft’s locks by using the DirectCompute programming language to unlock the massively-parallel processing capabilities of the Graphics Core Next architecture, enabling image quality previously restricted to pre-rendered images. Building on AMD’s previous work on Order Independent Transparency (OIT), this method makes use of Per-Pixel Linked-List (PPLL) data structures to manage rendering complexity and memory usage.

DirectCompute is additionally utilized to perform the real-time physics simulations for TressFX Hair. This physics system treats each strand of hair as a chain with dozens of links, permitting for forces like gravity, wind and movement of the head to move and curl Lara’s hair in a realistic fashion. Further, collision detection is performed to ensure that strands do not pass through one another, or other solid surfaces such as Lara’s head, clothing and body. Finally, hair styles are simulated by gradually pulling the strands back towards their original shape after they have moved in response to an external force.

It's a lot of technology for a little bit of rendering - but realistic hair presents a very unique problem and I am very interested to see this in action when Tomb Raider releases on March 5th. 

I asked AMD a couple of questions including if this was going to be a technology that NVIDIA users would be missing out on.  Their response?  "We don't create features that lock out other vendors."  That doesn't mean GTX 600-series card users will have access to this accelerated hair technology or that it will perform similarly if they do, but I'll take a look when I get my hands on the game.

We are hoping to get some video to go along with our screenshots as I think that will have a stronger impact.  You can find more details on AMD's TressFX landing page. 

NVIDIA Details Tegra 4 and Tegra 4i Graphics

Subject: Graphics Cards | February 25, 2013 - 08:01 PM | Josh Walrath
Tagged: nvidia, tegra, tegra 4, Tegra 4i, pixel, vertex, PowerVR, mali, adreno, geforce

When Tegra 4 was introduced at CES there was precious little information about the setup of the integrated GPU.  We all knew that it would be a much more powerful GPU, but we were not entirely sure how it was set up.  Now NVIDIA has finally released a slew of whitepapers that deal with not only the GPU portion of Tegra 4, but also some of the low level features of the Cortex A15 processor.  For this little number I am just going over the graphics portion.

This robust looking fellow is the Tegra 4.  Note the four pixel "pipelines" that can output 4 pixels per clock.

The graphics units on the Tegra 4 and Tegra 4i are identical in overall architecture, just that the 4i has fewer units and they are arranged slightly differently.  Tegra 4 is comprised of 72 units, 48 of which are pixel shaders.  These pixel shaders are VLIW based VEC4 units.  The other 24 units are vertex shaders.  The Tegra 4i is comprised of 60 units, 48 of which are pixel shaders and 12 are vertex shaders.  We knew at CES that it was not a unified shader design, but we were still unsure of the overall makeup of the part.  There are some very good reasons why NVIDIA went this route, as we will soon explore.

If NVIDIA were to transition to unified shaders, it would increase the overall complexity and power consumption of the part.  Each shader unit would have to be able to handle both vertex and pixel workloads, which means more transistors are needed to handle it.  Simpler shaders focused on either pixel or vertex operations are more efficient at what they do, both in terms of transistors used and power consumption.  This is the same train of thought when using fixed function units vs. fully programmable.  Yes, the programmability will give more flexibility, but the fixed function unit is again smaller, faster, and more efficient at its workload.

On the other hand here we have the Tegra 4i, which gives up half the pixel pipelines and vertex shaders, but keeps all 48 pixel shaders.

If there was one surprise here, it would be that the part is not completely OpenGL ES 3.0 compliant.  It is lacking in one major function that is required for certification.  This particular part cannot render at FP32 levels.  It has been quite a few years since we have heard of anything not being able to do FP32 in the PC market, but it is quite common to not support it in the power and transistor conscious mobile market.  NVIDIA decided to go with a FP 20 partial precision setup.  They claim that for all intents and purposes, it will not be noticeable to the human eye.  Colors will still be rendered properly and artifacts will be few and far between.  Remember back in the day when NVIDIA supported FP16 and FP32 while they chastised ATI for choosing FP24 with the Radeon 9700 Pro?  Times have changed a bit.  Going with FP20 is again a power and transistor saving decision.  It still supports DX9.3 and OpenGL ES 2.0, but it is not fully OpenGL ES 3.0 compliant.  This is not to say that it does not support any 3.0 features.  It in fact does support quite a bit of the functionality required by 3.0, but it is still not fully compliant.

This will be an interesting decision to watch over the next few years.  The latest Mali 600 series, PowerVR 6 series, and Adreno 300 series solutions all support OpenGL ES 3.0.  Tegra 4 is the odd man out.  While most developers have no plans to go to 3.0 anytime in the near future, it will eventually be implemented in software.  When that point comes, then the Tegra 4 based devices will be left a bit behind.  By then NVIDIA will have a fully compliant solution, but that is little comfort for those buying phones and tablets in the near future that will be saddled with non-compliance once applications hit.

The list of OpenGL ES 3.0 features that are actually present in Tegra 4, but the lack of FP32 relegates it to 2.0 compliant status.

The core speed is increased to 672 MHz, well up from the 520 MHz in Tegra 3 (8 pixel and 4 vertex shaders).  The GPU can output four pixels per clock, double that of Tegra 3.  Once we consider the extra clock speed and pixel pipelines, the Tegra 4 increases pixel fillrate by 2.6x.  Pixel and vertex shading will get a huge boost in performance due to the dramatic increase of units and clockspeed.  Overall this is a very significant improvement over the previous generation of parts.

The Tegra 4 can output to a 4K display natively, and that is not the only new feature for this part.  Here is a quick list:

2x/4x Multisample Antialiasing (MSAA)

24-bit Z (versus 20-bit Z in the Tegra 3 processor) and 8-bit Stencil

4K x 4K texture size incl. Non-Power of Two textures (versus 2K x 2K in the Tegra 3 processor) – for higher quality textures, and easier to port full resolution textures from  console and PC games to Tegra 4 processor.  Good for high resolution displays.

16:1 Depth (Z) Compression and 4:1 Color Compression (versus none in Tegra 3 processor) – this is lossless compression and is useful for reducing bandwidth to/from the frame buffer, and especially effective in antialiasing processing when processing multiple samples per pixel

Depth Textures

Percentage Closer Filtering for Shadow Texture Mapping and Soft Shadows

Texture border color eliminate coarse MIP-level bleeding

sRGB for Texture Filtering, Render Surfaces and MSAA down-filter

1 - CSAA is no longer supported in Tegra 4 processors

This is a big generational jump, and now we only have to see how it performs against the other top end parts from Qualcomm, Samsung, and others utilizing IP from Imagination and ARM.

A graphical description of market woes from Jon Peddie

Subject: General Tech, Graphics Cards | February 25, 2013 - 01:32 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: jon peddie, graphics, market share

If last weeks report from Jon Peddie Research on sales for all add in and integrated graphics had you worried, the news this week is not gong to help boost your confidence.  This week the report focuses solely on add in boards and the drop is dramatic; Q4 2012 sales plummeted just short of 20% compared to Q3 2012.  When you look at the entire year, sales dropped 10% overall as AMD's APUs are making serious inroads into the mobile market, as are Intel's, with many notebooks being sold without a discrete GPU.  The losses are coming from the mainstream market, enthusiast level GPUs actually saw a slight increase in sales but the small volume is utterly drowned by the mainstream market.  You can check out the full press release here.

"JPR found that AIB shipments during Q4 2012 behaved according to past years with regard to seasonality, but the drop was considerably more dramatic. AIB shipments decreased 17.3% from the last quarter (the 10 year average is just -0.68%). On a year-to-year comparison, shipments were down 10%."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk

• 3DMark Review @ OCC
• Trendnet N300 Easy-N-Range Extender @ Rbmods
• NETGEAR ProSafe GS110T Gigabit SmartSwitch @ Benchmark Reviews
• Quantum computer one step closer after ‘true’ quantum calculation @ The Register
• Microsoft brings Azure back online @ The Register
• Understanding Camera Optics & Smartphone Camera Trends, A Presentation by Brian Klug @ AnandTech
• MWC Sunday roundup: HP Slate, Ascend P2 and Firefox phones @ The Inquirer
• AMD releases Firepro R5000 with remote display technology @ The Inquirer
• The TR Podcast 129: PlayStation 4, Titan, and more

AMD wants to wash your hair, with graphics. What??

Subject: Graphics Cards | February 22, 2013 - 05:29 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: tressfx, amd

I got an odd email just now that I thought I would share with you.  From AMD's Gaming Evolved account I got this:

You're at the top of your game. Why isn't your hair? TressFX is specially formulated with dynamic compounds like PPLL to re-energize your tired locks with vitality and luster.

WAT?

An odd campaign for sure, but it appears that on Tuesday AMD is going to discuss a technology that will bring realistic hair to gaming.  Finally some use for all that GPGPU horsepower on the Southern Islands graphics cards?

You can see the landing page for yourself right here.

Join PCPer and NVIDIA for a GeForce GTX TITAN Live Review!

Subject: Graphics Cards | February 21, 2013 - 01:12 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: video, titan, nvidia, live review, live, kepler, geforce titan, geforce

Missed the live event?  Here is the full replay feature me and Tom Petersen!

Hopefully by now you have read our review of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN 6GB graphics card that was just released.  This is definitely a product release that highlights a generations of GPUs and I would really encourage you to read the article and offer your feedback.

However, we have another event to promote right now: NVIDIA's Tom Petersen will be joining me on PCPer Live! at 11am PT / 2pm ET to talk about the GeForce GTX TITAN and its performance, features, pricing and more! 

GeForce GTX TITAN Live Review Stream

11am PT / 2pm ET - February 21st

PC Perspective Live! Page

If you have questions for Tom or me, you can leave them in the comments below (no registration required)!