geforce

NVIDIA Unleashes PhysX For GeForce 8 and Up

1:20AM Mike Fahey | Graphics card manufacturer NVIDIA bought PhysX cards creators AGEIA back in February, promising a free upgrade to existing GeForce 8 and above cards using their CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture) interface down the line. Well we are now sufficiently down the line, as NVIDIA has released the first of many planned GeForce Power Packs (grab it here), which not only enables the technology but also gives you some nifty tools to explore it with. Included in the first Power Pack is a complete version of Warmonger, one of the original showcases for the PhysX technology, an Unreal Tournament 3 PhysX Mod Pack with three maps, sneak peeks at Unreal Engine 3 powered social networking service Nurien, a couple of tech demos, and the drivers to make the whole thing go. Hit the jump for more info on this rather impressive update.

New NVIDIA Card “Fastest On Planet”

2:59PM Luke Plunkett | After first hearing about it back in January, Nvidia have today officially launched their GeForce 9-series 9800 GX2. With said launch, subtlety is straight out the window. They’re calling it “bar none the fastest Graphics Card on the Planet”, which, technically, it may be. Then again, seeing as it’s priced at $US 600 and is pretty much just two $US 200 8800 GT cards bolted together, it’s also “bar none the easiest way to blow $US 200 on the planet”. Jargon-filled presser follows.

New NVIDIA Series Catering To The Great Unwashed

3:30PM Luke Plunkett | The usual strategy for releasing new graphics cards is as follows: company releases ridiculously expensive graphics card, few can afford it, then as its technology ages it gets cheaper and trickles down to the lower ends of the market. Nvidia’s strategy for its new GeForce 9600 GT is a little different: it’s being pitched directly into the massmarket. The 9600 GT is the first card in Nvidia’s GeForce 9 series, and instead of coming in at a silly-expensive price will launch in the entirely reasonable $US 169-189 range. Bold new territory for a graphics hardware company, then, but it also shows Nvidia are serious about this whole PC gaming alliance deal, as it gives a good slap in the chops to the “upgrading is too expensive” argument. [Nvidia Product Page] More »

GeForce Gamers Get Free Cake From Valve, No Lie

6:00AM Brian Crecente | OK, so I lied. The cake remains a lie, but a free copy of Portal doesn’t. Effective immediately all NVIDIA gamers can download a free copy of Portal: First Slice, a special version of the game we all know and love, for free direct from Valve. To get the game you just need to hop onto the Steam site and run a bit of auto-detection software. If it finds NVIDIA hardware it will give you the game free of charge. The link to the freebie will also be included in all NVIDIA drivers moving forward. “More Steam gamers, including myself, play on NVIDIA hardware than any other GPU,” said Doug Lombardi, vice president of marketing at Valve. “That’s a testament to the company’s long history of innovation and quality. By working together with NVIDIA to expand our development, distribution, and marketing efforts, we’re increasing our ability to serve the millions of NVIDIA customers logging onto Steam and help us prepare for our next generation of content.” NVIDIA Steam [Steam Games] More »

This Is What Triple SLI Looks Like

10:00AM Logan Booker | A team of utterly mad Germans over at PC enthusiast hardware site PCGH have got themselves three of NVIDIA’s GeForce 8800 Ultras and plugged them into the one motherboard. Like I said, utterly mad. There’s no mention of which motherboard they’re using, but I’m assuming it’s a reference design from NVIDIA. The cards were paired with a quad-core Intel Q6850 and benchmarked using FEAR, Company of Heroes and Crysis. You’ll find a pretty graph with Crysis benchmarks after the jump. PCGH-Hands-on-Test: NVIDIA’s 3-Wege-SLI [PCGH, via Blue's News] More »

Upgrade Advice: Video Cards

12:00PM Logan Booker | If you’re looking to give your PC a bit of a jolt in the 3D accelerator department because you can only play Crysis on “Looks like arse” mode, don’t buy anything just yet. NVIDIA’s just released the 8800GT, which is essentially a refresh of G80, the main chip that powers the current range of GTX and GTS cards. The new hardware in the 8800GT, dubbed “G92″, comes complete with a die shrink to 65nm, which means less heat and faster clocks. In fact, the GPU and RAM run faster than the top-of-the-line GTX. Early benchmarks show the card coming very close to the performance of the GTX, which is pretty impressive for a refresh. Price-wise, 8800GT cards will be cheaper than the GTS (and about 1/3 the cost of a GTX), making the card even more tempting a purchase. Over in the US, cards are retailing for about $US 200-250. There’s nothing on the Oz market just yet, but give it a few weeks and they should start appearing. UPDATE: Scratch that, a few eagle-eyed readers have spotted stock in the following places: PLE Aus PC Market Going rate seems to be $350-400, which reeks of that awesome kind of madness. NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT: The Only Card That Matters [AnandTech] More »

What Does Crysis Think Of Your Video Card?

10:30AM Logan Booker | Judging by TweakTown’s analysis of the demo, if you want to push the resolution to 1280 x 1024 or higher, you’re going to need more grunt than what the mid-range GeForce 8600 and Radeon 2600 can offer. It’s all good news for GeForce 8800 and Radeon 2900 owners, with these cards scoring in the 30-40fps range with all settings on high, and ~60fps on medium detail. Not a bad showing from the 8800, when you consider the chip is a year old. Note that these benchmarks were performed on a system with a quad-core CPU, so you might be hard pressed to replicate the results on a dual-core. Crysis Demo Performance Analysis [TweakTown] More »