Architosh Staff ([email protected])

16 April 2004

 

Mac 3D: Nvidia GeFORCE 6800 Launch Event

Our very own Karen Popp was at the Nvidia GeFORCE 6800 launch event this past week in San Francisco. The event was a pretty large affair according to her and the work put into the 6800 is truly phenomenal. This looks like the card to get for the upcoming year, both for gamers and visualization professionals as well. The big question of course is, "does it support the Mac?" And the answer is, of course it does.

Nvidia GeFORCE 6800 - Most Advanced Graphics Leap in Company History

Nvidia's most advanced graphics card, the GeFORCE 6800, supports both its classic and Unix counterparts of the Macintosh operating system in addition to Linux. Of course the card also supports Windows operating systems. API support includes the latest and full OpenGL 1.5 spec and Microsoft DirectX 9.0 for all of those gamers out there.

Key Features and Technology

CineFX 3.0 Engine - The GeFORCE 6800 features Nvidia CineFX 3.0 technology -- technology that aims to deliver cinematic level realism in your games and media applications. The goal: to not be able to distinguish between a movie playing on your TV and a game running on your personal computer. The 6800 features groundbreaking new hardware technologies that support the realism developers want to create cinematic effects in their games. To learn more go here.

UltraShadow II Technology - Nvidia's latest shadow calculation technology speeds up complex shadow scenes by 4 times (4x) previous cards' speeds. It also improves on the realism of advanced graphics and games with multiple light sources. To learn more go here.

SuperScaler Design - Nvidia's GeFORCE 6 series cards include a totally new superscalar shader architecture, which doubles the number of operations that can be executed per clock cycle compared to traditional architectures in GPUs. There is native full 32-bit floating point precision support while allowing backward support for 16-bit mode calculations.

High-Precision Dynamic-Range Technology - HDR rendering technology -- a technique for rendering ultra realistic imagery -- was previously limited to graphics hardware capabilities. With Nvidia's HPDR technology based on the Industrial Light & Magic standard OpenEXR, the hardware barriers are removed. Now developers can tap advanced visualization technologies to give their applications even greater realism. To learn more go here.

These are the major advances of the Nvidia GeFORCE 6800 GPU but there are many others finer details that you'll want to know about. This isn't just a great advancement for gamers but a card that advances the graphics capabilities of those who create the 3D in the games, as well as 3D imagery for all kinds of other media and industries.

Nalu

Nalu -- which is Hawaiian for wave -- is the stunningly beautiful 3D creation used to showcase the latest Nvidia GeFORCE 6800 card's advances. Of particular note is Nalu's dense hair which can be simulated in real-time and lit by a technique called "deep shadows" where the topmost hairs glow brightly from exposure to light while the lower hairs are darker.

To learn more about the latest Nvidia GeFORCE 6800 card visit them on the Web at: www.nvidia.com

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