Keeping An Eye On 3D Graphics News ATI, NVIDIA & Others
New Products, Buyer's Guides and Comparative Reports 2003 Nov. 17: ATI Announces EAZYSHARE.
[Press Release from ATI.]
MARKHAM, Ontario - November 17, 2003 - EAZYSHARE(tm) software from ATI Technologies Inc. (TSX: ATY, NASDAQ: ATYT) enables users to share TV - live or recorded - from a PC equipped with ATI's ALL-IN-WONDER( card with any other PC on their home network, as long as it has a "Built By ATI" RADEON(tm) graphics card. The ALL-IN-WONDER card turns a PC into a fully-functional personal video recorder and EAZYSHARE extends those benefits to other PCs in the home. The launch of EAZYSHARE is the latest step in the transition of the PC from workhorse to the multimedia center of a wired home.
ATI's EAZYSHARE converts a PC with an ALL-IN-WONDER card into a video server. The viewer can sit at any networked PC (assuming it has a "Built By ATI" RADEON card) and watch TV with access to all the functions of a Personal Video Recorder. They can pause live TV, skip ad breaks, get instant replays of touchdowns and so on.
"As home data networks have surpassed the critical ten million household mark for U.S. households and will reach 30 million in just five years, connectivity for multimedia applications will spur dramatic growth," said Kurt Scherf, Vice President of Research for Parks Associates, a market research and consulting firm. "Given that one in five consumers in networked homes is already expressing an interest in multimedia networks, we anticipate strong uptake for solutions that leverage the processing and storage power of the home computer to drive new entertainment applications."
"EAZYSHARE brings us one step closer to putting a multimedia PC at the center of a connected home," said Ben Bar-Haim, Vice President Software, ATI Technologies Inc. "Now that home networks are commonplace, ATI is introducing EAZYSHARE to leverage them to bring PVR functionality to every room with a computer."
ATI is the only company to provide a complete multimedia solution for the PC platform: advanced 3D graphics hardware and software; hardware accelerated video processing; and, sophisticated software for remote multimedia enjoyment. ATI's EAZYSHARE software has been certified by Microsoft Windows Hardware Qualified Labs, confirming its stability and compatibility with the widest possible range of systems.
The combination of ATI's RADEON based video cards and ALL-IN-WONDER with EAZYSHARE (available in MULTIMEDIA CENTER 8.8/CATALYST 3.10) delivers an enhanced home networking solution - only available from ATI Technologies. EAZYSHARE is designed to run on any secure home networking configuration including 10/100 BaseT, HPNA, and 802.11b/g.
Available for free* download from ATI.com in December 2003, EAZYSHARE is included with ATI's CATALYST(tm) 3.10 software package designed to give ATI's RADEON video card users improved performance, additional entertainment value and overall increased stability.
* Connection availability and charges may apply.
May 22: ATI Cheating too? I don't want to look like an ATI apologist here, but I think there's a big difference between the type of cheating that ATI and NVIDIA pulled off with their latest drivers, by tweaking them specifically to get higher scores in 3DMark benchmarks. The difference, as I see it, is that ATI displays the graphics properly. There is no reduction in visual quality -- the driver is merely optimized to perform better. What's wrong with that? NVIDIA, however, does not display the graphics properly. It cuts corners (literally) to get higher scores in 3DMark2003. ATI got an extra 3% from optimizing its driver. NVIDIA upped its score a whopping 24% by dramatically reducing the visual quality! Take a look at the screenshots at extremetech.com and judge for yourself.
May 22: ATI Dawning. Dawn, the sexy pixie star of the latest, greatest NVIDIA demo was designed to run only on NVIDIA's latest graphics processors, but an OpenGL wrapper available here allows the demo to run (faster!) on ATI's latest (R300 or better) cards, too. The Inquirer provides details on how the wrapper does its magic.
May 18: Extremetech takes a look at the future of 3D graphics. The article also notes that graphic card GPUs are increasingly being used for non-traditional processing applications in fields such as physics. See Slashdot for further discussion.
May 16: ATI made two announcements this morning.
http://www.ati.com/companyinfo/press/2003/4647.html - ATI's EAZYLOOK(TM) Enhances Home Theater Experience. ATI's innovative distance user interface is designed for RADEON(TM) based customers.
http://www.ati.com/companyinfo/press/2003/4648.html - ATI Continues to Update CATALYST(TM) Software Suite at Unprecedented Rate. ATI's innovative software suite features DIVX(TM) acceleration and performance gains of up to 30 per cent. One notable new feature: Windows XP Media Center Edition support. (See our feature on Building a Home Theatre PC for more on what this driver does and doesn't do. In short, it's not going to add ATI TV tuner support to Windows MCE.)
The Multimedia Center 8.5 software is posted at http://www.ati.com/support/drivers/winxp/radeonopt-xp.html
May 14: Noted at HardOCP: New Detonator drivers are here today, this brings them up to version 44.03. There is a list of new features as well as claims of up to a 30% increase in performance. (As noted at ExtremeTech, there is some evidence that NVIDIA may be cheating by specifically optimizing the drivers to score highly in benchmark tests, at the cost of image quality.) According to the company, the new driver delivers an "incredible" 30% increase in performance over previous Detonator 40 drivers (conditions apply, of course). Characterized as "the industry's only true Unified Driver Architecture, the driver supports over five generations of NVIDIA GPUs - from TNT to GeForce FX - all in a single driver binary.
May 12: ExtremeTech has an extensive review of the brand new GeForceFX 5900 Ultra. See TomsHardware.com for another one, and Slashdot.org for a whole lotta discussion of the pros and cons of spending the really big bucks for the bragging rights that come with a graphics card like this. The card doesn't ship until June. Meanwhile, ATI has announced the Radeon 9800 Pro, which most reviewers agree is still the better card.
May 11: Noted at GamePC.com: If a flaming red GPU cooler and bright red PCB counts for anything, the Gainward Ultra 760/XP is worth a look. Elsewhere, controversy swirls over a French site that posted -- then pulled -- alleged Benchmarks of Nvidia's FX 5900 Ultra & FX 5900 Ultra Det R50.
Mired deep within the relentless fanboy rants at 3dnewsnet.com about which company rules is this interesting tidbit, which we've reproduced here to relieve you from the mind-numbing process of reading several hundred completely inane debates about a benchmark that may or may not represent the performance of a card that hasn't yet been announced (look for the NDA to be lifted next week at E3) and pre-release drivers. With that said, we're willing to bet the following is true:
NVIDIA partner that the NV35 will come with Detonator 50.xx drivers for all operating systems and that the driver should be available on NVIDIA.COM within three weeks.
In a separate email it appears that NVIDIA will ditch the NV30 from the product line - completely. I don't know if this is true but based on sales and performance it appears likely. NV35 fixes all the things wrong with NV30; the 128Bit memory-bus is now 256Bit and the cooling solution is far more suave.
NV30 was launched with the PR image of "Are You Ready?". Soon after it's launch ATi responded with "Are You Ready For More?".
Apparently Chief Executive Jen-Hsun Huang was furious with the NV30 and prevented the expected February roll-out from going ahead until the engineers built up a model that could tackle the ATi offerings. We were told that some engineers were fighting for their jobs (and some were fired?) and had an absolute grilling from Jen-Hsun, whom knows all too well that NV30 could well have started the process of NVIDIA annihilation.
Nvmax.com will reportedly have an in-depth NV35 preview up next week.
May 8: ExtremeTech.com pits ATI versus NVIDIA in its latest DX9 Graphics Card Shoot-Out. In the comparison, the reviewers don't just look at raw performance numbers – instead they compare performance per (US) dollar spent, to help you figure out which card offers the best combination of raw speed and value. The conclusion? ATI's Radeon 9500 Pro and Radeon 9600 Pro currently offer the best bang for the buck. Click here to read more of ExtremeTech's findings.
Apr. 2: Explosive Labs offers a review of the ATI ALL-IN-WONDER VE, delving into the details of supported and unsupported configurations for dual display card setups. This is important in this case, as the VE is a PCI card. The only hitch is: an ALL-IN-WONDER needs to be the primary graphics adapter in the system for the multimedia functionality to work. Thus, this won't be a solution for everyone, despite its attractive price.
Mar. 14: Noted at HardOCP: Re-flashing the BIOS of an ATi Radeon 9500 Pro can turn it into a 9700 Pro (or reduce it to a worthless pile of junk if things go awry). If you're lucky, you'll end up with an 18 percent performance improvement without even opening up your PC's case. envynews.com has details....
Mar. 13: The new ATi Catalyst 3.2 drivers have just been released and we've had a chance to put them through their paces, with good results. This is an update we'd recommend installing if you've got a Catalyst-compatible ATi card. Here's what's new:
Performance Improvements:
CATALYST™ 3.2 corrects a problem with 2D applications running in the background that can cause a momentary reduction in framerate (i.e."stuttering") in fullscreen Direct3D and OpenGL games. Specific instances of "stuttering" have also been addressed (e.g. Rallisport Challenge when the sun enters or exits the scene, or the "butterfly flying upstream" sequence during the Mother Nature demo in 3DMark 2003).
Dungeon Siege framerates are improved as much as 24% across multiple products, especially when running at higher resolutions. Framebuffer read-back performance has improved dramatically (500% or more) in CATALYST™3.2. This feature allows an application to retrieve a fully rendered frame from the graphics adapter and manipulate it or store it in the system RAM or on the hard disk.
Vertex Shader performance has improved dramatically (as much as 100% in some situations) for our DX8.1-class products such as RADEON™ 8500, 9000 and 9100. This brings significant gains to Vertex Shader intensive scenes such as the Battle of Proxycon and the Troll's Lair (both up 15-25% on RADEON™ 9000 PRO).
Note: For information on downloading ATi Multimedia Center 8.1.0.0, visit http://www.ati.com/support/drivers/winxp/radeonopt-xp.html
The drivers are available at the ATi Official Web Site: http://www.ati.com/
Mar. 12: Noted at Rage3D: ATI Multimedia Center 8.1.0.0 Download ATI has made available for download ATI Multimedia Center 8.1.0.0.
Owners of RADEON 9000/9500/9700 series graphics adapters and ALL-IN-WONDER 9700PRO / 9000 / VE multimedia adapters have access to a free upgrade to MMC 8.1 (requires an original installation CD to validate DVD decoder update).
Owners of older ATI RADEON series products that currently run MMC 7.7.0.1 or older software will need to purchase an upgrade to MMC 8.1 in order to update DVD support. Information on purchasing an upgrade can be found at ATI.com.
Download it here: http://www.ati.com/support/drivers/winxp/radeonopt-xp.html
ATI hasn't explained why all the cards older than the 9000 have to pay for the DVD upgrade. This, explains Rage3D, is because users who have older cards than the 9000 do not have a MMC DVD version containing Cyberlink’s PowerDVD decoder instead it uses Ravisent MPEG2 decoder. As ATI has to pay royalties for each new user getting the new Cyberlink decoder. ATI decided they had to pass on this fee to users who were upgrading to it. PC Buyer's Guide recommends against installing this upgrade, if you have an ATI card older than the RADEON 9000, unless you have no interest in DVD playback.
The Creative Lab's Audigy family of sound cards has architectural differences from earlier SoundBlaster products in order to provide enhanced audio quality. These changes have an impact on how the ATI Multimedia CenterTM works when an ATI ALL-IN-WONDERTM is used with an Audigy card. To partially address these issues, Creative has made available a special version of their drivers, which allows the ATI Multimedia CenterTM to function correctly. These drivers are version 250 (or later) of the Audigy drivers. Please make sure you are using the correct drivers.
In related news, the company on March 12 announced the availability of Catalyst 3.2 Drivers but, at this writing, has not yet posted them.
Mar. 6: ATI's latest batch of demos designed for the Radeon 9800 works just fine on the Radeon 9700 (and, presumably, the 9500), too. The Chimp demo is the better of the two. There's an 11.1MB MPEG demo, if you don't have one of these DX9-compatible cards. Elsewhere, DriverHeaven has a full review, performance tests and images of the new Radeon 9800.
Post new comment