nVidia shader patent (REYES/Raytracing/GI) destined for PS3?

[j^aws]

hierarchical Z Buffer not so good for lots of small polygons

Yeah, thats what my edit was about but if programmers use poly meshes its possible to process whole parts of the mesh like a larger polygon to a certain degree. More complex of course but allows for gains elsewhere as most optimizations do.

What about irregular z-buffer for GPU?

http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/billmark/papers/ism-TR/TR04-09.pdf

 

[Fafalada]

What about irregular z-buffer for GPU?

I'd say that would probably make the GPU slower (when using the I-Z).
Though I wouldn't mind if NVidia splashed out on one.

 

[j^aws]

What about irregular z-buffer for GPU?

I'd say that would probably make the GPU slower (when using the I-Z).
Though I wouldn't mind if NVidia splashed out on one.

Is an irregular z-buffer and TBDR mutually exclusive?

 

[version]

hierarchical Z Buffer not so good for lots of small polygons

Yeah, thats what my edit was about but if programmers use poly meshes its possible to process whole parts of the mesh like a larger polygon to a certain degree. More complex of course but allows for gains elsewhere as most optimizations do.

ok,

if gpu run on 1 GHZ, must have 2-20 z compare per cycle
average: 4 or 8
and 8,16.. pixelpipeline

thinkable 4 units each with 4 pixelpipelines, cell patent will real ?

 

[PC-Engine]

A sneek peek at PS3 PC GUI and OS.

 

[London Geezer]

A sneek peek at PS3 PC GUI and OS.

Huh? what's that?

 

[PC-Engine]

Linspire...or Linux with a GUI.

 

[London Geezer]

Linspire...or Linux with a GUI.

Oh... kinda cute.

 

[PC-Engine]

Linspire...or Linux with a GUI.

Oh... kinda cute.

There are some PCs being sold right now that actually have Linspire preinstalled. I was thinking about buying Linspire just to try it out on one of my old PCs which I only use for doing light stuff. It was called Lindows before MS sued them.

http://www.linspire.com/

 

[rabidrabbit]

So is Linspire the OS that is pre-installed on the "Cell" Workstations?

 

[London Geezer]

So is Linspire the OS that is pre-installed on the "Cell" Workstations?

I guess not.
But it's Linux based, so PCE is kinda saying, hey if it's Linux based it might look like this. Which is cool, i like that layout.

 

[rabidrabbit]

well, there are several other GUI's for Linux.

 

[PC-Engine]

well, there are several other GUI's for Linux.

True but this GUI is built-in right out of the box. You can go into many computer stores over here and buy a retail boxed Linspire OS like you could Windows and have it up and running on your PC in 10 minutes with GUI. Linspire was design with ease of use in mind for desktops as opposed to servers.

 

[rabidrabbit]

If Linspire was developed for desktops not servers, what has it got to do with "Cell", "Cell" Workstations and PS3???

PS3 will not have an OS/GUI that has so many functions as Linspire, it'll propably have a simple interface like that "cross media bar" in PSP and PSX.

 

[PC-Engine]

If Linspire was developed for desktops not servers, what has it got to do with "Cell", "Cell" Workstations and PS3???

PS3 will not have an OS/GUI that has so many functions as Linspire, it'll propably have a simple interface like that "cross media bar" in PSP and PSX.

It was posted to show that a CELL based PC might have an OS like Linspire since we were talking about the possbility of PS3 being used/sold as a PC alternative back on page 2 or 3.

 

[gleemax]

Judging by that screenshot, Linspire uses KDE (the K Desktop Environment). I've used it on FreeBSD. It's easy to use after getting it running (which can be hard, if you don't know what you're doing like me). More screenshots: http://kde.org/screenshots/kde330shots.php

Could a desktop PS3 use KDE? Sure. You can install KDE on a PS2 (with the Linux kit).

 

[Qroach]

What workstations, you mean the ones that don't really exsist yet?

 

[arhra]

You can install KDE on a PS2 (with the Linux kit).

Heh. You can install it, sure... wouldn't want to run it, with only 32mb of ram, though...

 

[ChryZ]

You can install KDE on a PS2 (with the Linux kit).

Heh. You can install it, sure... wouldn't want to run it, with only 32mb of ram, though...

Yeah, but thats the beauty of having a x11 server, you can run any window-manager, that is fitting your needs best. KDE is just one of many, there is a lot choice out there. A nice overview can be found here. My fav is BlackBox, lean and very fast.

 

[j^aws]

I don't think this recent answer by NV's David Kirk last month regarding Ray-Casting has been posted yet,

Ray-Casting

Reader Question: Will we see non-uniform rasterization, streaming ray-casts, or equivalent features to enable the kind of graphics we really want—real-time, dynamic lighting with a large number of lights?—Jason_Watkins

David Kirk: Yes.

Over time, everything that has been hardwired and fixed-function will become general-purpose. This will enable much more variety in graphics algorithms and ultimately, much more realism.

The good news, for my job security, is that graphics is still ultimately very very hard. Tracing streaming rays in all directions, reflecting between all of the objects, lights, and fog molecules in parallel is extremely hard. Nature does it . . . in real time! However, nature does it by using all of the atoms in the universe to complete the computation. That is not available to us in a modern GPU .

Graphics will continue to be a collection of clever tricks, to do just enough work to calculate visibility, lighting, shadows, and even motion and physics, without resorting to brutishly calculating every detail. So, I think that there's a great future both in more powerful and flexible GPUs as well as ever more clever graphics algorithms and approaches. Continued...

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1744811,00.asp

Irregular, non-uniform rasterization for PS3's NV5x perhaps