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Nvidia cloud graphics offer reality check

October 20, 2009 11:53pm
by Chris Nuttall

Nvidia today launched a “GPU computing in the cloud” service that will allow designers to manipulate and check photo-realistic environments in a fraction of the normal time it takes on a PC workstation.

The graphics chipmaker is combining “iray” rendering technology, from its mental images acquisition, with its high-end Tesla chips in a new RealityServer platform. It expects cloud computing providers to offer services based on the platform to designers of cars, aircraft, clothes, homes and office buildings.

In a demonstration on the fringes of the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Nvidia showed how a photo-realistic design for an office floor (pictured) could be manipulated in a web browser in 3D, with the effects of changing lighting shown and the new views taking seconds to render rather than over more than three hours on a regular workstation.

The company said the images could be accessed over the internet on any device that could run a browser, with an iPhone demonstration included in the presentation.

The software will be released on November 30 and Nvidia said it would help cloud computing providers to configure their servers with the Tesla GPUs (graphics processing units).

Both Nvidia and its main rival AMD have been pushing into graphics markets beyond the cards they make for PC gamers. They see a role in industries that can make use of the power of parallel processing, carried out in GPUs with hundreds of computing cores.

Nvidia has led with its Tesla GPUs and will follow up with its forthcoming Fermi ones, while cards based on AMD’s latest RV870 chip have 1,600 processing cores.

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October 20, 2009 11:53pm in Digital media, Games, Hardware, Software | Comment

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