If there is one summer movie you should seriously consider, the answer just might be a movie starring Adam Sandler, whose career pitches him competing against Rob Scheider for ‘worst summer movies ever’.

Pixels (2015) Movie Poster shows Pac-Man eating San Francisco

Produced by Chris Columbus, Pixels pitches an unlikely story that Carl Sagan and his Cosmos documentary series ended in a NASA project that was destined to destroy us all – Voyager 1 and 2 carried messages of humanity, and code for computer games of the era. Aliens got the message, figured we’re challenging them to war and sent back… what we send them. In a larger form.

Can Adam “Grown Ups 1-2-…” Sandler, Peter “Game of Thrones” Dinklage, Michelle Monaghan and other star-studded cast prevent the games from eating us all? Watch the trailer to see the cameo appearance of no other than prof. Toru Iwatani, creator of Pac-Man.

See the trailer here:

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Currently, DNS Records are still being changed, even though our site is already accessible toome, but we expect that by the end of the day, DNS Records will be refreshed on all ISPs.

Visit www.brightsideofnews.com and enjoy the latest analysis, news, reviews and rumors from the best industry in the world. Thank you for your patience.

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This DVD image file weighs in healthy 1.31 GB, so prepare to get your DVD burner from the dust bin, and burn the image to an empty media. Given the fact that this is a Release Candidate, and not a final release, one might ask “why bother?”.

The final version of SP2 should come to market in mid-April, so if you don’t want to wait, you can head to Microsoft’s official Vista SP2 download page.

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Under a not-so-scientific moniker Need For Speed Seminar Series, this 13-week course will feature domestic alumni such as Mark Hasegawa-Johnson, Dan Roth, Narendra Ahuja, Stephen Boppart, John C. Hart, Tom Huang and Seth Hutchinson, and guests such as Keith Thulborn (UI Chicago),  Sam Blackman (Elemental), Nikola Bozinovic (MotionDSP), Mark Johns (Tapulous) and Tim Sweeney (Epic).

More information is available if you visit the official site for Need for Speed seminars from Parallel@Illinois.

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Personally, I am interested in 3D Vision the most. Then again, you already know I am a bit quirk when it comes to IT, since I also game a lot using OCZ NIA, steering wheels and so on. Ever since I remember, 3D was a big thing for me. I remember buying comic books that came with glasses and becoming hooked on seeing Phantom, Mister No, Transformers, Superman and all “hovering” above the pages. Almost a decade later, I watched Freedie’s Dead using the same red/blue paper glasses. Anaglyph technology was far from perfect, could cause hellish headaches and overall, was not a good technology. But it was Cheap with capital C. Watching movies such as Superman Returns in IMAX 3D (all too short 20 minutes) only begged for decent 3D technology. Dolby 3D provides just that, but the technology is not usable in the world of computers. Big from me.

Nvidia’s 3D Vision promised all that, but using active shutter technology meant only one thing – it will be expensive to make. My ex-colleague from The INQ already made his take on how expensive this technology will be, but he didn’t mention the price, and wrote some inaccuracies (one emitter can play host to 1000 glasses if they’re in range – nV demonstrated 3D tech to press using a single emitter for the 50 of us in Munich). I managed to get the price from some sources, and all that I can say, I really hope it won’t be so high. The price I am hearing is $199 for one box. If this really is the future price in e-tail and retail, there is not much to be said besides – you screwed up. Badly.

I would have understanding if Nvidia teamed up with Oakley and brought top notch quality looks, offered customization (for prescription lenses), or something like that, but a cheap plastic-looking part (they actually use an expensive material to ensure durability, but it does look… cheap) costing more than $99 is just something that will not work. I am waiting to see the final product before I bring the judgment upon it, but unless the part comes at acceptable price point, I am sad to see that 3D will probably stay away from mainstream audience. Even OCZ NIA now is in sub-100 bracket, and yes, I would recommend that you go out and buy the part. Playing around with Nvidia’s 3D glasses was a blast on both Nvision and GeForce Plus event in Munich, but the key part is availability to the market. Pricing it out of the range is not something that will speed up the adoption of technology…

Thus, maybe 3D Vision will be a cool product in 2010, when the company will be forced to cut the price down to $99. Until then, this is an expensive gimmick. A gimmick that really works and offers great experience (in my opinion), but a gimmick nevertheless.

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Upcoming week is a key week for all members of the press – Christmas press conference season is at its highest, with companies sending in more invitations than ever before.

Personally, I should appear on at least eight of them, which is not so nice in possible five nights between Monday and Friday. Yet, financial industry is still feeling terrible, and even a $700 billion bailout from the US Government wasn’t enough to help the mis-managed sector.

Well, to all the stockholders that believed their overpaid “wealth managers” when they said “buy GOOG at $520, it’ll hit $1000“, “buy AMD at $10, it’s a steal“, “GM will rebound with Volt, buy stocks at $25, they will hit $70“, here is a Christmas card coming from a former employee of one failed giant, buddy of mine.

The company didn’t exactly listened to him in the semiconductor sector, and they listened to their chief semico analyst, person who saw Intel at $100.

Anyway, merry Christmas (in advance).

P.S. Thanks X, you are a darling. Miss u, hon.

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The story of Rockstar Games and Bethesda Softworks is a story of two development teams that switched positions. I played The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind and Oblivion on both PC and Xbox 1/360, and I remember that gameplay was always crisp-smooth on the PC (Morrowind was played on P4 2.4@3.36 GHz +Radeon9700Pro, Oblivion was C2 QX6800 + 8800GTX) and not so smooth on consoles. Those marvelous outdoors would stutter on some occasions, and overall, you could see that it was a cut-down PC conversion.

On the other hand, Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto III and Vice City rocked even on slower computers, and the game was a dream conversion – plays great on consoles, plays great on PCs, even the weaker ones. A buddy of mine played GTA III and Vice City on Duron 650@750, 1 GB of RAM and ATI Radeon 9500Pro – and it worked like a charm.

But when the time came for Fallout 3 versus Grand Theft Auto IV, the tide turned. Fallout 3 plays perfectly smooth on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and any decent PC out there.  Just for kicks, I am playing in 1920×1200, 8xAA/16xAF on AMD Phenom 9950 2.6 GHz, 2GB GeIL DDR2-800 CL3 and a single Palit GeForce GTX 280 1GB. I also tried ATI Radeon 4870X2 in the same machine, and the game works like a charm with 16xAA/16xAF (2GB GDDR5 makes wonders).
A friend of mine runs the game on Intel Core 2 Duo E8500, 4GB Corsair DDR2-800 and Palit GeForce 9800GX2. Folding@Home runs all the time, and the game works in 1680×1050 with 16xAF.

But with the release of the PC version of GTA IV, the internet exploded with comments from people that had horrifying problems with the (in)stability of the game. More fuel to the fire was added by Rockstar themselves, with company reps being caught saying “high level of setting is reserved for upcoming hardware generations”.
All would be fine if there wasn’t for the fact that the game works more stable on my Phenom+GTX280 system than on Core i7+4870X2 QuadFire. So, if next-gen CPU, 4GB of DDR3 emory and four GPUs with 4GB of GDDR5 memory and aggregate bandwidth of 225 GB/s (yes, much more than SRAM cache in any of the CPUs on the market) is not considered enough for “getting high (details )”, then something is fishy.

My dear Rockstar, I would say nothing, absolutely nothing if you created a game that looks like real, with utterly brilliant graphics, real physics, if you had made a game that looks like OTOY’s Ruby demo or their real-time Transformers videos (in case you wondered, teaser trailers for the Transformers movie were made in real-time using Radeon 2900XT 1GB).

So, did we got Real-Traced game that chokes on Radeon 4870X2 adn GTX280? Nope, we got a conversion based on multi-platform engine designed for PlayStation 3. Playstation 3 is nothing more than Cell CPU plus GeForce 7900, thus, GeForce 8800/Radeon 3800 equipped system should see this game fly in FullHD resolution.
But sadly, that is not the case, and here is where I have to use harsh, M-rated language. You see, in my personal and professional view, GTA IV looks like s**t compared to Unreal Tournament 3, Race Driver GRID, Crysis, Crysis Warhead, Fallout 3, Far Cry 2 and the list goes on. Trees in the game don’t look any better than original Far Cry, and Far Cry came out almost half a decade ago! I love GTA world, played GTA III, Vice City, IV Hot Coffee and so on and so on. I paid over 200 bucks for Collector’s versions of these games, but today, I feel robbed.

You’re accusing PC hardware vendors of not having powerful enough hardware, and at the same time you did not delivered anything else but a pathetic effort on conversion to PC Platform. This is where any person that shelved out 50-60 bucks (or worse, Euro) for a game should feel robbed because the developer decided not to spend resources in optimizing for the platform, but decided to shift the blame and basically, treat you like an idiot. You are not an idiot for having a PC or a powerful PC – give kudos where kudos is due. UT3 works in 30-40fps on GeForce 8600-based system with all the bells and whistles, and in well-above 100 fps on 8800GTX, yet alone on 2007 and 2008-class hardware. Why Gears of War work on both PC and Xbox 360 like a blast? Because developers worked their behinds off on making the game run. Any PC with higher-end components produced from 2006 onwards is more than capable of eating GTA IV for breakfast, if there wasn’t for broken code and sloppy work on developer’s side.

There are two types of developers – ones with their heads above the ground, and ones whose heads should be above the ground, but they’re busting their balls/ovaries to make the game work great on most affordable hardware, yet alone high-end one. Fallout 3 was worth my money. GTA IV sadly, failed completely and the game is not worth before it ends up in bargain bin – by that time, who knows, Rockstar may even learn how to optimize the game on PC. Let’s hope that a combination of a game from bargain bin and DX11-class hardware will be enough to power this game with decent framerate.

Somebody just got a nice X-mas present, because it is certain that I don’t want to have this game in my 400-title strong games collection. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…

P.S. Yes, I know that the game is getting a big patch. But a big patch is not enough when you delay the release of the game from November to December to fix those bugs and “optimize the gaming experience” – followed by a delayed release of something that still looks like it needs 2-3 months of work. Half-baked jobs ain’t cut any more. For premium money, you need to deliver premium content.

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DHL is going down the drain, we're the best! Choose us! Seriously?

In the past week, I received several “reminder” e-mails from both FedEx and DHL about just how great their service is, with FedEx leading the way in showing its cheeky face. That cheeky face was there for a reason, since DHL stopped all of its inter-US flight operations. By the looks of it, it also seems that DHL will have to fire 9500 of its staffers. The company was hit hard by economical turmoil, and it looks like Lufthansa and UPS will take a lions share of this courier giant.
But when it comes to FedEx advertising how great they are in shipping domestic and internationally, that is a real joke. In my eight years of experience, using FedEx for international shipping just plain sucks.

Just to clear any confusion, package was pre-cleared with

Besides stealing invaluable laptop prototypes (in Frankfurt) and then flat-out lying about the number of prototypes sent, FedEx also proved that the company was incapable of delivering 11 DVDs and a single CD from San Francisco to Zagreb, Croatia. After a lengthy discussion, in which I was accused of being a thief by default (“we assume you don’t want to pay customs charges” when the answer was “I’ll pay anything, get me CS4 Master Collection”), while in fact somebody in the company wanted Adobe CS4 Master Collection (one for Windows, one for Mac) for themselves… all in all, don’t want to go back there, the case has been submitted to authorities in Croatia and in the US.
The DVDs were, btw, delivered in a very damaged and unusable condition. Luckily, Ginny from AR-Edelman sent me a new package to my address in San Francisco, and it arrived promptly there..
But FedEx advertising their “superior” service… what a joke. For either domestic or international, I will always reccomend UPS or DHL. FedEx has a lot of things to learn from these two, in troubles or not.

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ASUS is the first company out the door with Quadro motherboard and a complete system

Quadro FX 470 is currently available from ASUS in a form of P5N-VM motherboard and TW100-E5 iQuadro workstation computer (it seems that ASUS is really going after HP and Dell), but you can bet that others will follow.
However, I am seriously disappointed with the price of the part. For $700, Nvidia is not offering a SAS controller or similar workstation oriented features. But, this is their first part, give’em time You can see the full story over at DVhardware.net.

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Meet the NIA

This is"the" NIA. Device is much smaller than people think. Quite portable.

NIA itself comes in a white, mysteriously labeled box (“Advanced Biotechnology for Gaming”), and is consisted out of headband with three carbon-fiber electrodes, NIA USB box, USB cable, CD and a manual. USB cable was long enough, but after some problems, I decided to use my 9-foot EMI-shielded USB cable from Hiper. The headband is without any doubt, least sleek part of the package. Rubber-band with residues of glue on electrodes left the impression of ultra-cheap part from mainland China, not of eye-opening device. There are three carbon-fiber diamond-shaped sensors at the front of the band, and two additional ones at the very end of rubber band, ideally positioned just above your ears. First three sensors pick up your electrical signals, while side sensors are picking up muscle contraction, such as swallowing, moving your teeth, eyebrows and so on. Through time, you will learn to use all of these reactions to control more and more controls with your face, rather than mice or a keyboard.
The rubber band will also leave a mark on your forehead after hours of long use, but in a sense – it is the ultimate geekdom. If somebody asks you on the street: “what is this mark on your forehead?” and your answer is: “Ah, nothing special. Those are marks from sensors that I use to control computers” – your status as computer-deity is nothing else but guaranteed.

Also, there is a special way how people look at you in the lounge. Last week, I was sitting in First Class Lounge in Munich, playing Call of Duty 4 using the NIA. Besides the fact that I was youngest by some 10 years, several guys approached me and ask me what the device is. When I briefly explained what is that, people started asking me where they can buy the device. When they heard about the price, they could not believe it.
The NIA box is quite small and easy to pack. You can feel the vibrations while the device is working, but that’s nothing special or annoying. OCZ did a brilliant job with the design of this one, completely opposite of headband.

How it works?
For starters, NIA is not a mind-reader. OCZ Technology worked hard with Brain Actuated Technologies on creating a gaming device that would read the reaction of your Glance, Muscles, Alpha and Beta waves. Gamma, Delta and Theta waves are not scanned due to desire to keep the price of device under $100,000 ;-).
Now, the hard part: if you think “go straight”, you will not “go straight”. NIA does not work like that, since it cannot translate your thoughts.

NIA measures electrical potentials when you are thinking about going left, right, straight, back and so on. For best possible results, your mind has to be as relaxed as possible, and without disturbances. What you need to do is allow NIA to adjust to you, and think of movements. Also, you have to adjust to NIA – this is a way into bionic computing, and instant gratification is something that will not happen (unless you have a focus-driven mind with high levels of concentration). After a while, NIA’s driver will begin to pick up your signals and move your virtual avatar in the right way. With combined usage of muscles and glands, your movement will become smooth, and shooting, jumping and similar operations will pass in mere milliseconds before they’re rendered on screen.

Experience
First of all, this is a device which you cannot benchmark. Every individual has a brain with unique signature, and it will take different time of adjustment between your brain and NIA. It may sound like rocket science, but Brain Actuated Technologies’ technology works adaptively, and adjusts to signals produced by your brain. Thus, this is no overnight “becoming super gamer” project, rather a timely and sometimes a frustrating experience.
NIA is only intended for gaming, not for your every day Windows experience. But after two weeks of using the device, I decided to try surfing through my site. Scrolling up and down was easy, but point and click is a difficult one, sadly. Back to square one. Today, four months later, I can actually go back and forward through websites, even managed to control switching between tabs. Yes, it is not easy and it still takes me much more time than to use a mouse, but this is a first generation device.
Installing software was easy-peasy, and thanks heaven’s - OCZ released 64-bit drivers. You can turn on and off NIA control at any time by simply pressing the Ctrl+F12 keys. In order to test the device, I used 32-bit Windows XP Pro SP1 operating system and later migrated to 64-bit Windows Vista Ultimate SP1.
For the test, I selected couple of my family members:

–    75 year old female (grandma)
–    47-year old female (mum)
–    29 year old male (me)
–    23 year old male (bro)
23 year old - After four days of using NIA, it was a challenge to successfully navigate in 3D games. I was quite surprised to see this subject having so many difficulties and undergoing numerous calibrations, rotating the headband, and still nada. The issue was that the left diode is not touching the forehead completely, and this person has a perfectly normal, average forehead. But in some specific head-types, positioning NIA can be a challenge. After countless hours of calibration, we finally managed to get things going. But the feedback for the device was negative, since my brother felt that he is much faster with a keyboard and a mouse.
29 year old – By some odd stroke of luck, the author of these lines syncs with NIA without any issue. I’ve been covering NIA through the last two years and every event I had a chance to play with NIA – virtual or real foes just fell on the ground. If you’re able to calm down and focus on playing the game, adaptation to NIA should pass in a whim, and it is really easy to adapt the skills. I started playing Unreal Tournament 3 on novice level, and gradually progressed to on-line play. Within a week of using the device, I’ve managed to average 25 kills and 20 deaths on 50-kill limit deathmatch maps. Today, I can say that there is no difference for me if I play with the NIA or on a keyboard+mouse combination. To me, biggest challenge was alternative mode on rocket launcher.
47 year old – My mum sporadically used computers for the past eight years, but did not play 3D computer games. Setting the device proved to be the challenge similar to my bro, but in a matter of half an hour, we managed to get the perfect signal. The game of Pong proved to be quite fun, but mum was an avid fan on Tetris and complained that OCZ could have used Tetris as a training game. Guys’n’girls from OCZ, take note ;). Moving inside the 3D game proved to be a non-issue, sans often jumps (neck muscles were configured as jump). When we moved jumps to teeth and shoot to neck muscles, subject killed herself several times with a rocket launcher. Of course, commenting on the game and playing it at the same time proved to be quite… entertaining. Who says that the Wii is the only “fun for the whole family”?
75 year old – We decided to do something different with the three-quarter century grandma. Given her absolute-zero experience with computers, instead of learning to move on a keyboard/mouse combination, we did the opposite. Subject adjusted to NIA in a matter of minutes, instead of hours. After passing the Brainfingers and Pong training, elderly person started walking inside a 3D level for the very first time. To be honest, we’ve activated only one bot on novice skill level. After “thumbs up” and comments in regards to the late Arthur Clarke, grandma tried keyboard and a mouse. She complained that the commands are too unintuitive and wished NIA back. This is probably the most surprising experience with the computers that I’ve personally experienced, and a sheer witness of how genius the device is. According to her, “I did not believe that I’ll live to see the day Star Trek come to life”. The Original Series, not to confuse with franchise business of today.

From this small sample of four relatives, it is obvious that NIA has some design challenges to overcome. Mum and bro experienced issues with contact of one of sensors, which was a consequence of rubber headband. Personally, the best design was the “Rambo-style” cotton headband with Velcro adjustment that OCZ used while developing the NIA. Sadly, OCZ discovered that design was uncomfortable after a while, so the company came up with the actual design. Beside the 23-yr old, three subjects had no major issues in adjusting to the device and were able to move inside 3D space. Yes, I will continue to use NIA

Issues? What issues?

If you run into a calibration problem...

...don't become discouraged. Adjust the headband, check for potential EMI issue and shut your cellphone until you see this image ;-)

During past four months, I’ve only experienced two potentially major issues. Firstly, bear in mind that this device is nothing else but a cruder EEG unit. As such, the device proved to be quite sensitive to Electro-Magnetic Interference (EMI), and it refused to work in my Lab, surrounded by open configurations. However, notebook or a closed case resulted with no signs of trouble. This is the reason why I moved to Hiper’s USB cable, since I was able to put the NIA box far away from the testbed.
Also, I noticed an issue with cell phones. When cell phone positioned next to the NIA device went through standard network check, I lost control inside the game. Thus, I would recommend that you position the NIA analyzing part as far from EMI sources as possible. Since I haven’t seen any reviews online that mentioned EMI shielding problems, there might be a problem with my device.

Once more, I feel obliged to stress out that the headband is not the most comfortable device on the planet, and it will leave a mark. I hope that 2nd gen device will have a modified rubber band.
Conclusion
At the end, I cannot say that I am done with Neural Impulse Actuator. This device is just fascinating, and I hope that second generation will bring improvements such as negating the need for mouse and start exploring letter recognition support.
OCZ is positioning this device in the gaming segment, next to its line of gaming mice and keyboards. If I have to judge this device as a gaming controller alone, it can offer unique gaming experience, but it will take some time to adjust.
But if you look into this device as an “enabler” or 3D worlds to elderly and disabled people, that’s a whole another ballgame. There is tremendous number of people that were physically stopped from enjoying 3D worlds through their respective disability. NIA enables those people to start playing games and improve their life. And that is something that is not just commendable, but is truly inspiring. OCZ did a brilliant job with this one, and I hope that the company will continue to develop this concept into the future.
There is no Editor’s Choice or 10/10 award for this device. I can only say that you should try it. If you find 100 or so bucks in your budget, don’t think about $90 SideWinder or G9 mouse, or a $100 “gaming” keyboard. This might give you a whole lot more than those peripherals.

The post Is OCZ’s NIA the most important thing in IT industry? appeared first on VR World.

GPU Physics unleashed
Theo: The PhysX pack had an excellent response since its launch in August. Recently, 178.24 drivers were released, containing a new PhysX library (btw, installation of the driver can occasionally hang due to PhysX v8.09.04.exe not loading up). Did Nvidia positioned a limit or at least recommended what would be the minimum GPU would be for decent acceleration of physics effects?

Roy's uncanny tongue recently deserved a spot in art's gallery. Guess where the piece of art is exhibited? ;-)

Roy: The experience will vary in the same way it varies with graphics. Some users are able to put in more AntiAliasing, more filtering, enhance image quality… and others less. Same is true with PhysX. In terms of minimum spec, I don’t think we have one. I know that we didn’t plan to [impose any limits]. It is a case of try… users should try for themselves. Every system has a level of settings where users should be comfortable with, that being graphics or physics. Upcoming Big Bang II will offer even more choice in configuring what levels of PhysX can be used by physics engine.

Theo: So, any GeForce 8 product will do?
Roy: Yeah.

Theo: When it comes to developers, how do you feel about developers reacting to all of the changes that are now happening with the expansion of GeForce line, implementation of GPU-accelerated Physics… can you share what is coming from the content side?
Roy: You asked couple of questions. First one is “How are they reacting to [GPU-accelerated PhysX]?” The answer is simple: they love it. We are preparing a lot of big announcements right now. Over the next couple of months, you are going to see more really wonderful announcements.
The reason why developers are so excited over Physics is being so successful is couple of things. First is our announcement to them that we are supporting PhysX on all platforms they’re working on. We are supporting consoles in the same way we’re supporting PC platform. Our PS3 performance on PhysX is now excellent. It’s fantastic. We optimized PhysX API for Cell processor and only recently, got an excellent jump in performance. And we are supported directly by Sony. That is a big deal for us, because if we take a look at recent market data [I advise you to check NPD Group market research, VGchartz.com is also a good source of information], Xbox 360 is starting to decline a bit, Wii is leading the pack and now PS3 woke up. PlayStation 3 is definitely picking up and we’re heading into a very interesting Christmas season. The fact that we have a physics solution for PS3, which is fast a well supported, is just by itself important. Also, you should not forget the fact that we have native PhysX implementation in Xbox 360, and with those two truly high-end consoles, we have excellent coverage of the console market.
If we discounted every other factor, we would be successful just from that (PS3 share). But PS3 is just one of the platforms we support.

Theo: Care to elaborate a bit more on the developer support side?
Roy: Of course. Developers have always liked Nvidia’s DevRel and DevTech support. The fact that they can now get that [support] for the consoles as well is really popular. We’re investing heavily in helping developers to develop the content in best possible manner and squash bugs as they come along.
If we move back from the console world back to the PC, we have GeForce GPU leading market share and that is a really big deal for developers. Let me explain why – most of the developers and publishers will sell anywhere between 2-7 million copies of a good console game. They will sell on average anywhere between 0.5-1.2 million copies of the PC version… they do that because the PC version is very profitable (its cost of development is already paid for). All they believe is that the GPU Physics gives them a second bite at the apple. It is those additional effects in the PC version, which means that the PC version might now sell in two million copies more, because if offers effects consoles just cannot process. Or even more. Those are estimates publishers are telling us about.
So, the value of GPU-accelerated physics can add the differentiating factor between the console and the PC version, giving gamers reasons to opt and buy the PC version. If you have Physics levels on consoles, only thing you do is add additional graphics and physics features or scale them for the PC version. It is worth to be straight-forward. That’s the big deal for them.
First of all, they have the console support. Second of all, they like the fact that because of PhysX accelerates on the GPU, they can ultra-easy and straight-forwardly add functionality and features to the PC version which will add reality and help sell additional copies.

Theo: What is Nvidia’s target when it comes to number of titles that you guys want to push? Ageia’s PhysX was adopted by 100-150 titles, mostly on consoles. What is the “sweet spot” that you would like to capture?
Roy: We want every single PC title going forward, to have Physics from now on. On average, throughout The Way It’s Meant to Be Played program, we support about 150 PC titles a year. In couple of years, we expect to have 500-600 titles. So, going forward, every title we work and support on will have Physics on. We hope that in all of those cases, physics API will be our PhysX.

Theo: How do you actually see Physics effects balancing themselves out in a mix between PC, Xbox and PlayStation 3? GPU can obviously do much more than any CPU in distant future, so how are you going to evolve the Physics-scaling? How do you rank the performance for PhysX?
Roy: What we have today is a rough equivalent of 3D world in 1992. Everything that we see is very rudimentary. Imagine the year 1992 and you were trying to guess where 3D is going to go from there. We cannot have any concept or idea how fast Physics is going to take off in the next 10-15 years, but it is likely to have as dramatic influence on the market as 3D graphics had and still has. All physics effects that exist today are very rudimentary and the key phrase is what we call “fixed state”. What that means is that if you can blow up an object, you can blow up a car in 10 pieces on Xbox 360. Well, you can blow up the same car into 10 pieces on PS3 and you can blow it up in 10 pieces on the PC [using a CPU]. But with the release of our driver last month, we introduced GPU-scaling physics, which means now you can blow up that car in hundreds of pieces, if you have the right GPU. So, we are seeing a transition from fixed-state physics into a fully blown scalable physics. Biggest problem today are faces, since model animation is only animated through fixed-state physics. And PhysX is very scalable physics [API].

Theo: How do you plan to develop PhysX in the future? While AGEIA was running the show, I got the opportunity to see their future roadmap and things that they want to develop. You know, neither PhysX or Havok are complete physics engines by a mile, there is a lot of things that need to be implemented to have a very compelling and realistic physics experience. What is Nvidia doing to enhanced future implementation of PhysX? We can call if PhysX 1.5, or 2.0 or something like that…
Roy: Yes, there are two parts of the answer. First one is of course, the actual hardware. For obvious reasons, we cannot disclose what are we working on in the future GPU parts, nor we can comment on unannounced products, but you don’t need to own a crystal ball to see that we are going to implement even more PhysX-optimized units in the future. And yes, we are going to add more cores to our processors. What cores – that remains to be seen. From the hardware point of view, we are going to see greater levels of parallelism, and Physics is a massive parallel problem. From hardware standpoint, we’re going to add more hardware acceleration to solve complex parallel mathematical problem which is physics.
In terms of software problems, things are going extremely well, and we’re really satisfied with the way how PhysX is expanding. What we are going to do are two things: firstly, we’re going to enhance the implementation of effects that we already do well. This will of course, be done with our APEX – Advanced Physics EXtensions. APEX is going to be a big deal. Secondly, we’ll develop tools that will enable developers to implement PhysX more easily, and put much more physics effects into the game. What we need for that is a very strong tool-chain. We now have hundreds of engineers working on PhysX. Literally, we’re not fooling around. We have hundreds of engineers that extended Manju’s (Manju Hegde, co-founder of AGEIA) original team of engineers and the APEX Tool is another reason why we are being successful with the developers. It will put the power into artists’ hands, not limitations. By using APEX, you are able to apply physical attributes to a number of different elements. That can be vegetation, or destruction or vehicles, or whatever element or object in the game you want to apply PhysX attributes to.
The APEX itself, APEX Tool and ApPerfMon are doing wonders for tweaking the PhysX performance and that is really important for the success of Physics. We are going to have a number of announcements about the tool chain coming up in the near future. Our roadmap is built upon APEX, ApPerfMon and some other to be announced tools that are aiding in the introduction of greater physics into the existing environments.
Key to adding more physics is also further separation of Physics development are two stages: first one stage is PhysX Effects, second stage is PhysX gameplay. Let me give you couple of examples. Water in Crysis is beautiful, but you can’t splash anyone. Nor can you go to a river and scoop some water into your water-canister. You can’t pour water on anyone. In terms of weather, we have some really cool weather effects coming in STALKER: Clear Sky and Far Cry 2, but there are still some limitations. You cannot stand in the water and wash your hair, for example. You could not have the rain flood the river… you cannot have lightening strike a straw hut and catch it on fire.
So, there are some limitations that game developers are facing. What we are going to do is remove those limitations. Good example is also destruction. We have destruction in games today, but it is really rudimentary. We were all impressed with the fact that you can shoot a tree in Crysis, but you cannot take a machete and start chopping down the vegetation to clear your path. These are just some examples of physics effects that developers want to see implemented in their games.
Physics Gameplay is whole another ballgame. This requires a lot of work on developer side, so we expect that it will take time to implement. Physics Gameplay is introducing the in-game physics at a higher level, so that you can entirely change the game. For instance, if we take the game Hitman, you noticed that he never-ever changes his suit. Don’t you think that if someone is assassin, assassin should be able to change the clothes quickly and blend with the regular crowd? In physics gameplay effects, you’re going to able to change your clothes. Or, rip your clothes. Or even, put hat on. Have you ever noticed that you cannot put a hat on a character in a game? Or put a beard on… there are plenty of games where you can shoot off a hat from the head of a soldier…but you never see a soldier put that helmet back on. In physics gameplay, these dynamic changes will enable a change how characters interact with environment.
We’ll be able to destroy clothes, burn them, rip them off… getting them soiled and dirty. Also, let’s talk about racing games. There are plenty of car games on the market, and you see cars crashing into each other. For example, you’re in a racing game, and you lose a wheel. In a game, that might be the end. But in reality, or in physics gameplay, it might be that the wheel is just damaged and you can continue to drive the car in a way… or you might be able to spin the car over and over and over and still keep driving it. Or you might have some components coming off from the car.
Let’s give another example – how about, in terms of physics gameplay, that you go into the city and you can go into every building, see through every window, open every door? Imagine trying to find a sniper when the shooter can move inside the whole building… and if every single window could be opened? We might end up with a game that has no locked doors…or if the doors are locked, you have the ability to open them up, either by lock picking or just kicking them down.
These [effects] are what we call physics effects, and these were just the examples coming from the games we’re working on. And they’re just limited by your imagination.

Theo: Yes, I am aware of several titles that feature physics in a whole new light. Just like with the appearance of 3D, we would expect that there are game developers out there that will use physics effects in a ways we did not expect…
Roy: When people think about gameplay, what they really think about is interactivity. Gameplay means interactivity. The more I can do inside the game, more I can interact with [the virtual world]… the more fun I find it. If I can drive any vehicle, or any plane, or interact with any object, it’s fun. And that interactivity is physics. So equation to me is: Gameplay = Interactivity = Physics.

Theo: You’ve mentioned game developers and publishers that are enabling physics in games. Can you tell my readers a bit more about those developers?
Roy: All of the announcements are left for partners, but we’re working closely with them and very soon, we will have some very exciting announcements. Examples I gave are just a small taste of what’s coming…

Roy issues an open invitation to developers

Roy thinks that PC games can take much larger chunk of overall game sales than is the case right now... current situation is demonstrated in this picture

Theo: AGEIA used to support development of free games such as Warmonger, Cell Factor: Revolution. Will Nvidia support teams like these ones in the future, or just focus on bringing the PhysX to market with big guns?
Roy: Absolutely. We are supporting some small guys. We’re supporting developers like Ascaron in Germany (Sacred II), we’re supporting Metropolis (Day), Black Lion (Shadow harvest)… in fact, any developer which reads your article, I am happy to print an open invitation to any… you can put my e-mail address in your article, it is rtaylor @ nvidia.com (please remove two spaces between before sending). I am using this space to invite any game developer out there who is interested in using physics. Any developer can send me an e-mail and I guarantee you that I will return that e-mail to every single developer.

Theo: Consider it done, though bear in mind that I cannot promise that this e-mail address will not be picked up by a lot of spam bots that are hovering around popular websites
Roy: I would be only too happy to anyone that wants to use physics and enhance his virtual world. We all need new level of interactivity inside games and entertaining applications.

Theo: At the end of the day, we’re bound by the world we live in. That world has its limitations we all have to endure. But, every time someone pushes those boundaries, regardless of that being skaters or bikers pulling incredible stunts, racing cars, pilots undergoing insane G forces for fun [Red Bull Air Race], those are experiences that matter. Seeing a game and not being able to destroy a trash can with a tank really demoralizes the player.
Roy: Exactly. This is why I said that we’re living in 1992 when it comes to physics in games. The new world of physics started last month, with the introduction of our beta driver that did GPU-accelerated physics scaling. Now, developers are going to have a whole new world to think about when it comes to physics development. We need new levels of interactivity, and we strongly believe that physics is the only viable way to enhance interactivity.

Conclusion
In the end I wish to thank Roy for this interview; I know it’s been a while since we made it. It looks like Nvidia is betting a lot of things on the adoption of physics engine, and in all honesty, we need it. Upcoming touch-screen and 3D glasses will change the way we play and experience computing, regardless of that being Windows 7 UI, 3D game or a movie. Physics is an integral part of enhancing computing experience, removing a lot of limitations that we have in our current configuration, consisting mostly out of a keyboard and a mouse.

Disclaimer: Photos were “borrowed” from Facebook in terms with FB’s EULA ;-). Roy Taylor was not hurt during shooting of these images

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Features

You can go the easy way of clicking... or just go to advanced options

This is a consumer friendly product, so hardcore users might object to “too fancy” interface. Personally, I have nothing against. Supported input video formats are .m2v, .mpg, .vob, .avi*, .trp, .ts, .m2t, .m2ts, .mpeg, .mts (MPEG-2, H.264, RAW, HDV, AVCHD, AC-3, MP2, PCM) in any resolution lower than full HD one. Output is being done in MP4 (H.264) profile with 2-channel AAC-LC audio, in any resolution below 720p one.

Setting up the custom resolution is "easy peasy"... for some reason, default after installation was resolution of my BBerry Bold

Since primary purpose of this application is to transcode video to your iPod, iPhone, PSP, MCE and other handheld devices. I’ve just got a Blackberry 9000 Bold, and it fits the reccomended PSP resolution perfectly (480×272). Of course, you have a choice of custom resolutions, audio settings, bit rate and so on. Bit rate is especially helpfull in order to get the movie fit on your mobile device – after some hacking, 8GB card on my Blackberry Bold had all three LOTRs for upcoming flight Zagreb-Munich-San Francisco. It may be 13 hours, but it will be more fun with Blackberry on

Audio Settings depend on the audio source featured on your DVD or video file...

Of course, writing this opinion while listening to Sex and The City on right monitor wasn’t helpful, but still my friends and myself were impressed with the speed of selecting the transcode options. Finally a no-brainer user interface which you can work with at 2AM.

Performance is a charm, but comes at a price…
So, what kind of performance can you expect from Badaboom? I’ve tried the software using AMD Athlon 64 5000BE @3GHz, Phenom 9950BE@2.6 GHz, Zotac’s GeForce 8800GTX AMP! Edition (so, higher clocked than 8800Ultra) and Nvidia’s reference GeForce GTX 280. Given the time constraints, I didn’t find the time to put slower cards such as 8600GTS and similar castrated brothers. For a video card minimum, Elemental reccomends GeForce 8800GT or 9600GSO (a brilliant card, don’t be surprised if Nvidia kills it).

Dual-core CPU is tricky area for Badaboom - you should think about quad-core that wil be able to feed the GPU

My experience was the following – Phenom system with 8800GTX beat the living crap out of Athlon system with GTX280. 8800GTX was transcoding my test Lord of The Rings – FoTR at 184-195 fps, and was done in 14 minutes. Dual-core Athlon with GTX280 achieved only 145 fps on average, with the CPU load at 88-94%. Badaboom was eating 60-70% of Athlon system, while quad-core was loaded at 60%. So for Badaboom, you need a triple or a quaddie CPU.

But the performance is awesome. When I compare a 14 minute transcode to whole-nighter on CPU alone, it is just… let’s just say that this product rocks. In order to bypass stupid MPAAfia protection on my DVDs (I have more than 200 DVDs and 300 games for which I paid for, and MPAA and game developers/publishers still treat me like a criminal. Great moves, guys – I’ll crack my original games before you say “torrent”!), I’ve used AnyDVD. This piece of software is something that every owner of DVDs should buy. Removing the protection on the fly is something… well, user friendly.

Getting back to Badaboom, from this first look I can say that it is a must buy if you want to transcode movies, and own a GeForce card, this piece of software is something that you should buy. Nvidia is expanding its GPGPU (or GPU computing, as Jensen likes to call it) offering dramatically. First schorching Folding@home performance, then Photoshop and Premiere Pro, and now Badaboom.

I got a review copy for free. But yes, I am going to spend $30 to support the guys.

UPDATE 15:41 CET 24/10/2008: I’ve just filed new story regarding the CPU utilization. You can read it here.

The post UPDATED: Elemental’s video transcoder rocks the world appeared first on VR World.

Sapphire

Sadly, Sapphire was not allowed to make any changes, so FireStream 9250 continues to come with only 1GB of GDDR3 memory, while the most GPGPU scientists we talked about are talking about the need for massive amount of memory. Nvidia’s respond was 1st generation Tesla with 1.5 GB and the latest one with massive 4GB of GDDR3 memory.
We certainly hope that AMD will release FireStream with 2-4GB of memory, given their track record in professional graphics space. In any case, I congratulate to Sapphire for releasing the card.

The post AMD releasing professional cards to partners – Sapphire first appeared first on VR World.