A look at NVIDIA's SLI Multi-OS and new Quadros

[B3D News]

NVIDIA introduced a number of new Quadro products today, along with SLI Multi-OS which, amazingly enough, allows for full 3D acceleration in guest OSes for virtualization. A beta version of their CUDA raytracing solution has also shipped to their partners in early March.

Read the full news item

 

[compres]

Guest acceleration is the interesting point for me. Too bad they are restricting this to one single product in their line. I have seen active work on this feature in both VirtualBox and VMWare, so it will soon (I hope) be mainstream so the nVidia product will be pointless (I hope given the price).

Anyway, I never understood why they price the workstation products so high. What's the justification?

 

[Davros]

getting them certified for certain apps

according to the article nv have trademarked "real work" or should that be "real work(tm)"

 

[_xxx_]

I guess the justification is the customer support involved.

 

[bowman]

Maybe someone can rip their drivers apart and perhaps get a few pointers on how to make the VirtualBox acceleration tick.

 

[Tchock]

Very impressive showing for the virtualized section.


I don't think their graphs were right for 08 though- ATI actually got pro marketshare back IIRC. It's 12% (IIRC) for now, probably will stay there since the new Quadro offerings are quite impressive by themselves.


Margins have gone down quite some though since the FireGLs and Pros came around, so no more easy lucrative lunch.

 

[Arun]

Guest acceleration is the interesting point for me. Too bad they are restricting this to one single product in their line. I have seen active work on this feature in both VirtualBox and VMWare, so it will soon (I hope) be mainstream so the nVidia product will be pointless (I hope given the price).

Yeah, I don't know if there is any real ETA for that though - either way the OEM refresh cycle is now so it doesn't matter for this year, hopefully for AMD it'll be available by next year...

I don't think their graphs were right for 08 though- ATI actually got pro marketshare back IIRC. It's 12% (IIRC) for now, probably will stay there since the new Quadro offerings are quite impressive by themselves.

I don't know, here's what Jon Peddie said in December:

Nvidia meanwhile continues to dominate for professional graphics hardware, shipping 90% of overall units in the third quarter, the highest share in JPR’s records. That number may end up marking Nvidia’s peak, however, as competitor AMD is ramping a new set of more competitive products that should pull back some share in coming quarters.

So unless there was a substantial gain in Q4 for AMD, NV's numbers seem relatively credible to me. I'd love to know about any evidence to the contrary though! As for margins, yeah probably, but given their operating profit level I think that's probably also an excuse to say they can't lower their prices any further than anything else...

 

[Tchock]

http://www.pcpop.com/doc/0/378/378095.shtml
EDIT: looks like it's on JPR itself, lol.
http://www.jonpeddie.com/special/Workstation.shtml


nVidia -> 90% to 86.3% (First time net market share loss since 2004, no wonder they didn't show this number )
ATI -> 8.8% to 12.1%


Revenue and volume are down too, but I think the midrage FirePros probably sold quite some amount- since the newer cards are starting to substantially shake off the old FireGL incompatibily/buggy stigma (R580GL and back) whilst being extremely frugal in terms of power draw.

Might also be nVentory causing problems, didn't consider it to that extent.

 

[Arun]

Ah yeah, that's Q4 though. NV's numbers are for the full 2008 year - so they're definitely correct, just if you look at the current situation ATI is clearly gaining some share - good! I have no idea how much of that might be nVentory issues, but clearly it can't be most of it.

 

[iwod]

Good thing ATI are gaining. Nvidia has been too arrogant and not been producing anything decent. I hope their Next Gen will be the Core2Duo equivalent.

I thought the SLI Visualization is interesting, does that mean we could finally play Games on a Virtual Windows XP without much ( >5% ) performance penalty on a Mac?

 

[bowman]

Good thing ATI are gaining. Nvidia has been too arrogant and not been producing anything decent. I hope their Next Gen will be the Core2Duo equivalent.

I thought the SLI Visualization is interesting, does that mean we could finally play Games on a Virtual Windows XP without much ( >5% ) performance penalty on a Mac?

No, it means you get OpenGL acceleration for your CAD programs with your €1500 Quadro card. I didn't see any mention of D3D and I doubt they would want to mention it if it was possible.

NVIDIA segmentation at play.

This is what you might want to keep an eye on for any VM gaming.

 

[Arun]

No, it means you get OpenGL acceleration for your CAD programs with your €1500 Quadro card. I didn't see any mention of D3D and I doubt they would want to mention it if it was possible.

Actually, I asked explicitly and it *does* work on Direct3D... However you are right that since it's limited to very expensive cards, it's not very useful in that scenario except for 'retiring' bankers.

 

[bowman]

Actually, I asked explicitly and it *does* work on Direct3D... However you are right that since it's limited to very expensive cards, it's not very useful in that scenario except for 'retiring' bankers.

Really? Well, that's something alright.. Definitely.

*goes to reflash card and install Quadro drivers*

Time for some Linux/BSD/Solaris driver makers to quietly reverse engineer and get some 'inspiration' from 'SLI-Multi-OS'..

 

[iwod]

No, it means you get OpenGL acceleration for your CAD programs with your €1500 Quadro card. I didn't see any mention of D3D and I doubt they would want to mention it if it was possible.

NVIDIA segmentation at play.

This is what you might want to keep an eye on for any VM gaming.

To me Intel VT has been proved that it doesn't work much at all........

 

[BRiT]

Intel VT along with VT-d (Directed IO) helps significantly with performance. Not all Intel chipsets/motherboards support VT-d even if they support VT.