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The leaves are falling off Photosynth
Well that's what Microsoft's new Photosynth website - just released from its long beta phase - keeps telling us. Photosynth is now live for users to create their own 'synths', although every time we try to view one we get the bizarre message pictured here. Usually followed by IE7 crashing.
To create a 'synth' (a funky stitched-up 3D view of a photo collection), you need to upload between 5-300 photos (yes, upload - don't dig out your high-res pics just yet) of your subject using the Photosynth desktop application and let Microsoft's servers do all the grunt work. Oh, and you need a Windows Live account to sign in as well.
It's a fascinating technology, but one that seems to be in desperate search of a useful practical application for the masses.
Gainward and Inno3D Geforce 9800GX2s sneak out
Gainward and Inno3D have shown off graphics cards based on Nvidia's upcoming Geforce 9800GX2.
The card was supposed to be kept a secret until 18th March, but since this is Nvidia's new high end model, manufacturers look keen to unveil their designs.
We're informed the 9800GX2 uses two 65nm G92 chips, like that used on Nvidia's 8800GT and 8800GTS graphics cards, sandwiched together like the 7950GX2. AMD's ATI Radeon HD 3870X2 is the target and if the past performance of two 8800GT and two 3870s is anything to go by, the 9800GX2 could well end up being the fastest card in existence.
They are huge cards:
Below, notice the HDMI port on the back of the Gainward card (also present on the Inno3D version), which will make gaming on a big TV easy:
3870 X2 does things in pairs
AMD's Radeon HD 3870 X2's landed on the scene today, a graphics card that includes two Radeon 3870 chips on one PCI Express 2 board.
The concept has been done before on Nvidia's Geforce 7950GX2 and some experimental Radeon 1950 Pro Dual's, but this time the card feels like a more manageable size.
It's currently running through its paces with the latest ATI drivers on our Intel rig. We've snapped it with a regular XFX 8800 Ultra (the black card), where you can see the 3870 X2 is just a fraction shorter.
Fujitsu Siemens calls for graphics cards manufacturers to open up
Graphics card manufacturers should open up their libraries fully so programmers can start taking advantage of hardware in new ways, Fujitsu Siemens' chief technology officer Joseph Reger announced at its annual Augsburg conference.
Reger went on to say Nvidia's Cuda programming tools were not enough, claiming "if you buy a graphics card today you have no idea how to use it."
Stream computing performed on high end graphics cards has been getting lots of press recently. Kaspersky recently ran an anti-virus scan on a Radeon HD 2900XT 21 times faster than using the regular instruction based method on a top AMD dual core. Graphics cards are also far superior in many biomedical modelling and astronomy calculations and we've looked at, and continue to investigate, Windows password hacking with an Nvidia card.
"These are the first steps away from the von Neumann principles" Reger said, where the data stream decides what's happening, rather than classical instruction driven execution. Despite his own hype though, Reger proclaimed data centres packed full of graphics cards won't ever happen.
Nvidia to formally launch tri-SLI?
November 8th might be the day Nvidia formally launches triple SLI in the UK, according to a rather indiscreet email in my inbox.
This coincides nicely with Nvidia's launch of the Geforce 8800GT graphics card, which is a space-saving, single slot card. It has a smaller cooler because it's based on a 65nm process with an estimated 110W power draw, lower than its high end siblings. SLI isn't very efficient in Vista though, which you can read more about in our Wired2Fire Diablo Extreme review.
The 8800GT's core speed is 600MHz, shaders sit at 1.5GHz – on a par with the Geforce 8800 Ultra – while GDDR3 Ram is clocked at 1.8GHz. With 112 stream processors, more than an 8800GTS's 96 and less than an 8800GTX's 128, it's positioned right between the two and performance looks intriguing; Expect a review soon.
Online retailers are already taking orders for the card (for less than £180) and AMD will respond in the coming weeks with its RV670 GPU, which is a die shrink of the 2900XT from 80nm to 55nm, with a few tweaks. I've been informed by manufacturers that performance isn't as good as the 2900XT because it only has a 256bit memory controller.
AMD says the processor will form its Radeon HD 3800 series. It has DirectX 10.1 support, which will be included in Vista Service Pack 1 in early 2008. DirectX 10.1 fixes a lot of DirectX 10 limitations and its biggest new feature is Cube Map Arrays that can produce mimic many ray trace effects like indirect lighting, soft shadows and refraction.
ATI's and Nvidia's new cards just missed out on our mammoth graphics card grouptest (in the Christmas issue on newsstands today), where we put every other ATI and Nvidia card (14 DirectX 10 cards in total) through DirectX 9 and 10 benchmarks.
First DirectX 10 AGP card
We've just got our hands on the first DirectX 10 card to appear in AGP format, a Sapphire HD 2600 Pro.
AGP continues to be hugely popular in the retail market since many people want to upgrade their aging PCs with AGP motherboards.
I'm informed there is no support for HDMI, since ATI can't get the audio controller won't wok across AGP. This is its only major drawback, since HDCP keys are loaded onto it and regular drivers work no problem.
It's an early sample, which perhaps explains why it has a rubber bandage covering what might be the PCI-Express to AGP bridge chip.
We'll throw it in our labs testing now and bring you DirectX 10 and DirectX 9 scores next week.
Mid range DirectX 10 cards arrive
We've just finished testing MSI's NX8600GT graphics card, the first DirectX 10 card we've had in our hands that costs less than £100.
We were offered an 8600GTS to test, and that will come later, but we plumped for the 8600GT because it's cheaper and I had hoped for the perfect price/perfromance balance. Ultimately it's cheap DirectX10 card but my day-dreams about the performance possibilities failed to materialise.
In a press release, Nvidia quoted Sony as hyping up the 8500's and 8600's high definition capabilities. Either Sony supports the use of Blu-ray ripping software AnyDVD, or it's been mis-informed by Nvidia because our 8600GT did not have the HDCP codes onboard necessary for Blu-ray playback.
This is what they said: "Sony Pictures is enthusiastic about the ability to play Blu-ray movies on the PC," said Don Eklund, executive vice president, advanced technologies at Sony Pictures. "The new state-of-the-art NVIDIA GeForce 8500 and GeForce 8600 cards will enable consumers to enjoy Blu-ray movies on mainstream PCs."
Ignoring any copying ability, AnyDVD HD bypasses ACSS on the fly. You install the program, don't have to go into any settings whatsoever and you can successfully play back Blu-ray movies on any old DVI monitor. It works a treat.
Nvidia and ATI release new Vista drivers at last
Nvidia and AMD both made new drivers available for download yesterday, to accompany the Microsoft Vista launch.
AMD claims its new ATI Catalyst 7.1 offers a big leap in performance over beta Vista drivers but admits Windows Vista is still eight per cent slower in Far Cry, four per cent slower in Dark Messiah and 1-2 per cent slower in all the 3Dmarks and Half-Life 2 when compared with XP performance.
Crossfire support is once again limited, with no OpenGL Crossfire support whatsoever.
In a statement AMD says it is now developing performance adaptive anti-aliasing and their Catalyst Control Center for linux.
Nvidia's new Forceware 100.54 driver has bigger problems with early reports suggesting there is zero SLI support and the videogame Prey won't work.
Quad-crossfire in the wings
Our report that Sapphire has made the first dual-ATI-GPU based graphics card that fits into a single PCI Express slot should not only please ATI/AMD fanboys, but also Nvidia worshipers.
The X1950 Pro Dual has an internal crossfire connector present, which means linking the two together resulting in a quad-crossfire setup could be right around the corner.
It's a common belief in the IT industry that quad-SLI performance was deliberately crippled by Nvidia because there was (and still is) no competition from ATI.
In our original quad-SLI review we got a score of 13,000 in 3DMark05, when we were expecting 18,000.
The x1950 Pro has a lot in common with Nvidia's 7950GX2 designed for quad-SLI: Both have a gigabyte of Ram, the GPUs that aren't top end (i.e. fewer pipelines or lower clocked chips than present in 7900GTX and X1950XTX) and they will, of course, both fit into a single x16 PCI Express slot.
Where they differ is Sapphire's design uses a single PCB, whereas the 7950GX2 uses two PCBs stuck on top of each other, making it thicker, less elegant and uglier (although internal PC components don't usually look 'attractive').
We look forward to a flurry of driver development from ATI and Nvidia's response.
ATI and Nvidia driver updates
Hot on the heels of Nvidia's WHQL release, ATI has made their WHQL-Vista drivers available
With the Vista release for businesses just 4 weeks away hardware companies are rushing to make sure their hardware will work. Not being Vista ready would slash sales of any company.
Getting the WHQL stamp of approval implies compatibility, stability and acceptable performance. The drivers are available on the recently-turned-AMD-green ATI website.
Separately, in an attempt to stay one up on ATI, Nvidia has released drivers that accelerate high-definition video performance.
HD-DVD and Blu-ray will be the benefactors of this release however with so few HDCP chips available and even fewer HD-DVD and Blu-ray drives out there we're not sure who would want the drivers.
