The URL you followed to get here is no longer in use and we have redirected you. If the URL was in your bookmarks then please
update your bookmarks. If you followed the link from another web site or search engine then please notify their webmaster.
NVIDIA at IDF 2004
NVIDIA, one of the Gold Sponsors at IDF this year, held their public discussion on the state of the graphics market, talking about how innovation drives demand. The presentation was held by David Kirk, NVIDIA's Chief Scientist.
He started off by making big noise about how out of the 23 graphics cards validated by the PCISIG (special interest group), 22 were made by NVIDIA. Anyone with half an eye on that issue will realise that ATI are going about their validation differently (they validate as a single platform, say all X600 boards as the X600 platform), but the volume of cards that NVIDIA have had tested and validated is still quite impressive.
Quadro was the product they pushed the most, in terms of desktop and professional accelerators, especially the NV40-based Quadro 4000.
Serial Data Interface (SDI) was a big part of their presentation. The SDI link on a Quadro FX4000 SDI allows realtime capture of the framebuffer or other video channels to allow for realtime video effects to be processed or overlayed, then output again in realtime video a digital connection. The first example given by NVIDIA was realtime overlay of information on a broadcast television signal, using a single Quadro FX4000 SDI.
The second example was the use of a Quadro FX4000 SDI in movie theatres, using the FX4000 to run the projector. The film distributor can edit the film in realtime before it hits the projector, allowing them to cut in video data before and after the film, overlay region specific subtitles without them having to be bundled with the film, adjust the quality of the output in realtime, to suit the quality of the cinema screen, and many other related effects.
NV4x's video processor is the enabler for many of those things, processing HD content in realtime.
SLI
NVIDIA also demonstrated SLI using a pair of Quadro FX4000 boards and a military flight simulator title that showed off its power. Locked framerate doubled, simply by adding in the second card
Click for a bigger version
MXM
MXM is the final part of the talk worth covering, NVIDIA showing off an NV43M running Doom3 in the working system, with a bridged GPU out on display for people to look at and take pictures of.
Wrapping it up
Finally, NVIDIA were bullish about DirectX 9.0C and Shader Model 3.0 support from top to bottom in its GPUs, from the budget end to the top enthusiast boards, with mobile and mid-range cores in between.
A confident display of NVIDIA's core technologies by its top engineer, to a receptive crowd.
printer friendly layout 
discuss in the forums 
email to a friend
IE7 Search
Firefox 2 Search