Posts Tagged ‘Graphics’

Graphics hardware in $25 Raspberry Pi Linux box outperforms iPhone 4S GPU

January 26th, 2012

The Raspberry Pi Foundation is building a low-cost Linux computer with a 700MHz ARM11 CPU. The board, which is roughly the size of a pack of playing cards, entered the manufacturing stage last month. There will be two models, priced at $25 and $35, with different specifications.

The board is built around the Broadcom BCM2835 chipset, which is designed to handle intensive multimedia. In a recent interview, Raspberry Pi founder Eben Upton claimed that the Broadcom graphics hardware in the Raspberry Pi offers twice the performance of the iPhone 4S GPU and soundly beats NVIDIA’s Tegra 2. Upton worked for Broadcom on the team that developed the hardware.

At the SCALE 10x conference this month, developers from the XBMC project demonstrated their software running on a Raspberry Pi board. XBMC is a popular open source media center application that has advanced library management features and support for playing video in numerous formats. The XBMC developers ported the media center to the Raspberry Pi using a developer hardware unit supplied by the Raspberry Pi Foundation.

The demo, which can be viewed in a YouTube video, shows that XBMC runs reasonably well on the Raspberry Pi hardware and is relatively responsive. It was able to smoothly play an H.264-encoded 1080p video. Another video that was published this month shows Nokia’s open source Qt toolkit running on the Raspberry Pi, demonstrating the use of OpenGL shaders in Qt’s declarative QML user interface framework.

Source:http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2012/01/tiny-25-raspberry-pi-linux-board-reportedly-offers-twice-the-performance-of-iphone-4s-gpu.ars

MSI Adds GT685 Gaming Laptop With GeForce GTX 580M Graphics

January 4th, 2012

MSI introduced its latest gaming laptop in the form of the new generation GT685. This laptop is the first in the company’s lineup to feature the Nvidia GeForce GTX 580M discrete graphics card which offers 384 more CUDAs than the previous generation card as well as 2GB GDDR5 of display memory. You’ll also find an Intel second generation Core i7 quad core processor, 32G DDR3 of memory, and RAID 0 accelerated dual hard disk architecture in this laptop. An optional SSD hard drive is also available. Other key features include MSI’s TDE (Turbo Drive Engine) technology, MSI Cooler Boost, Dynaudio sound, THX TruStudio Pro, and Cinema Pro technology.

MSI is rolling out its new generation GT685—the ultimate gaming machine. In addition to featuring the Intel second generation Core™i7 quad core processor, it is the first laptop to sport the nVidia GeForce GTX 580M, the world’s fastest discrete graphics card, 32G DDR3 of memory, and accelerated dual hard disk architecture. It comes with Dynaudio and THX TruStudio Pro smart wrap around sound as well as a full HD screen. You’ll be impressed by how smoothly online 3D games play and with the edge that your new GT685 gives you against opponents.

Taipei—The machine won the CES 2012 award for product innovation, seen by many as the highest honor of the high tech industry. MSI, where designing high-end record-breaking gaming notebooks is par for the course, will continue to design faster, more powerful notebooks that follow in the tradition of its gaming NBs best epitomized in the MSI GT685. The GT685 utilizes the wildly anticipated nVidia GeForce GTX 580M top-end discrete graphics card which boasts 384 more CUDAs (Compute Unified Device Architecture) than the previous generation with advanced 256 bit broadband and 2GB GDDR5 of display memory. You will be awed by how smooth 3D games run and the new edge you enjoy in battles will help you rack up wins.

Superior display

Eric Kuo, associate vice president for global sales, MSI Notebook, explains that the battle-ready MSI GT685 features top-of-the-line hardware, including nVidia’s GeForce GTX 580M—the most powerful discrete graphics card in any laptop ever, to give you the best display performance out there. Not only did this king of notebooks smash the 3D Mark vantage high resolution test with 16,000 points, it also blasted through the 3,000-point mark in the most stringent 3D Mark 11 test, which meets DirectX 11 standards. These two history-making achievements more than testify to the fact that the MSI GT685 has the most advanced 3D processing capabilities of any NB in the world—more than enough to handle the new generation of exciting 3D games slated to hit the market in 2012.

From strength to strength

nVidia’s top-of-the-line GeForce GTX 580M discrete graphics card: The powerful MSI GT685 comes locked and loaded with the nVidia GeForce GTX 580M discrete graphics card which boasts 384 more CUDAs than the previous generation, giving it 256 bit broadband and 2GB GDDR5 of display memory to give it the most advanced hardware in the cosmos. This powerful machine broke previous records on the 3D Mark vantage with 16,000 points. That coupled with the fact that it supports DirectX 11 and nVida PhysX technologies enabled the GT685 to break 3,000 on 3D Mark 11. You will be amazed by the detail in explosions going off all around you, smoke and dust over battlefields, as well as wisps of clouds and rippling water in adventure games.

Optimus overclocking display technology: The nVidia GeForce GTX 580M discrete graphics card is not only the most powerful hardware architecture ever, when the MSI GT685 is processing power-hungry high-resolution 3D images, the Optimus overclocking display technology automatically engages system overclocking for crisper, clearer graphics and more detailed 3D images to give you animation that conveys a sense of speed and vastness as you blaze about the universe. Now, you can do some serious gaming without worrying that your laptop can’t keep up.

Intel 2nd generation Core i7 quad core processor: MSI’s GT685 features the Intel second generation Core i7 quad core processor. To kick up performance a few notches, the new generation Intel Core i7 processor supports Intel Turbo Boost 2.0, a technology which automatically allocates processor resources in accordance with processor load, thereby enhancing the core speed of each core to maximize computer performance.

32GB of memory: The new generation MSI GT685 battle-ready gaming laptop comes equipped with four DDR3 memory slots to give you an incredible 32GB of memory. In addition, the RAID 0 accelerated dual hard drive architecture doubles hard drive memory and the optional SSD hard drive instantly increases hard drive read speeds by 70%, more than enough to meet the needs of battle scenes and other complex graphics.

Enjoy blazing speeds, while staying cucumber cool

TDE overclocking: The GT685 incorporates MSI’s own TDE (Turbo Drive Engine) technology. Just one touch of the luminescent Turbo hotkey located conveniently above the keyboard fires up overclocking to give you crazy speeds.

Cooler Boost: The GT685 comes with MSI Cooler Boost. Simply depress the hotkey over the keyboard to engage the powerful cooling capabilities, so your system keeps its cool even in the hottest working conditions.

Superior multimedia experience

Dynaudio sound: World-class leaders in sound technology from the Danish firm Dynaudio carried out countless precision calculations and studies to measure the best location and distance between user and laptop speakers to determine the best possible location for speakers. The result: ideal line of transmission for sound waves for pure, crisp, faithful stereo reproduction to give you the perfect, obstruction-free multimedia experience.

THX TruStudio Pro: THX TruStudio Pro smart wrap around sound offers performance heretofore available only in cinemas. It works in tandem with the cutting-edge speakers, so that the GT685 reproduces each and every sound faithfully, regardless of music or sound type.

Cinema Pro: The GT685 laptop features the most advanced multimedia performance available and Cinema Pro technology for the best possible graphics. Prior to watching a film, press the Cinema Pro hotkey to instantly switch to film mode for higher resolution and richer colors for the same great audio experience found in live performances, films, and recording studios. MSI’s all-new GT685 is your best choice for serious gaming and for use as a powerful multimedia center.

Full array of HD features: The GT685 is equipped with a full HD 16:9 wide screen that offers bright colors and doesn’t have those pesky black strips at the top and bottom of the screen when you watch films. The HD720p webcam allows you to enjoy smooth, bright high fidelity web calls with friends and family. If you want something bigger than a high definition computer screen for viewing films, the MSI GT685 also comes with an HDMI port, so any type of high-fidelity, high-definition video can be played on your NB, but viewed via a cable on a large-screen LCD television screen.

Latest energy-saving technologies

ECO Engine: The GT685 comes with MSI’s own ECO Engine, a power-saving technology which allows you to select from among five power management levels—Video Game, Film, Presentation, Word Processing, and Turbo Battery, automatically adjusting display brightness as well as on/off switch, sleep mode, and processor performance settings, maximizing battery flexibility and use per charge.

USB3.0: The MSI GT685 comes with USB3.0 which boasts transfer speeds of 4.8Gbps—10 times faster than USB2.0, and 80% higher power transmission, providing vastly higher data transfer rates and charging speeds for external hard drives, flash drives, and other handheld electronic devices.

i-Charger: MSI GT685 is equipped with MSI’s i-Charger technology. More powerful electrical current to the USB speeds up recharging more than three-fold, so that you don’t need to spend nearly as much time to get your mobile devices up and running again.

Cool looks

King of gaming laptops: The glowing white characters “MSI” grace the center of the GT685′ cover and is set off by the black diamond shape and crimson trim. The palm rest areas have a stylish rhombic pattern and the touchpad is bordered in nickel-plated trim. The chassis is sheathed in MSI’s own color film print which not only gives the GT685 a subtle luster, but protects it from scratching and wear to keeps it looking nice. The GT685 has an independent chiclet keyboard to help keep you from hitting the wrong keys and to give you a nice, solid touch whether you’re typing a letter or slaying orcs.

Light and sound show: The GT685 has another cool feature—a one-of-a-kind LED light show. So whether you’re listening to music or engrossed in an exciting, fast-paced game, just press the MSI LED light show hotkey and lights embedded on either side of the notebook and in front of your keyboard will pulsate in sync with sounds emitted by your laptop, kicking the thrill level up a few notches.

Source:http://hothardware.com/News/MSI-Adds-GT685-Gaming-Laptop-With-GeForce-GTX-580M-Graphics/

Sharkoon’s T28 ATX Case Designed For Easy HDD Installation and Graphics Card Legroom

December 21st, 2011

A case without easily accessible hard drive bays or enough room to accommodate beefy components is one that is liable to get chucked out of a window in frustration at some point. Sharkoon’s T28 case is designed to alleviate those issues.

The otherwise black case is available with red, green, or blue accents and features eight hard drive bays. It can also handle two 5.25-inch drives, and a pair of mounting frames for 2.5-inch drives is included. Part of the hard drive cage (containing three bays) can be removed to provide 40cm of space for a long graphics card.

The T28 allows for a CPU cooler up to 16.5cm high and a PSU up to 29cm long. The case is now available for 54.90 euros.

Sharkoon presents another series of cases: Available in three color editions, the Sharkoon T28 offers a lot of space especially for hard drive installation, thankfully due to the removable hard drive cage, and also perfect for extra-long graphic cards.

Externally the Sharkoon T28 offers a black body and a rectilinear mesh front design. Power and Reset buttons are elegantly chromed. In regards to the front connectors, Audio In/Out stands ready between three USB2.0 ports and a USB3.0 interface. An acrylic window on the left side panel gives an insight into the interior of the colored mainboard tray. Choose from three color editions: Red, green, and for the first time after numerous customer suggestions, blue. Also, the operating and hard drive LEDs illuminate in the edition color as well as the three pre-installed 120 mm fans. Two fans rotate in the front, the third in the back. All possess a 4-pin power supply and a 3-pin mainboard connector.

The Sharkoon T28 allows various options with the drive assembly: Two external 5.25 inch and eight internal 3.5 inch bays are available. In one of the two 5.25 slots an external 3.5 inch device alternately can be mounted, appropriate installation material is enclosed. 2.5 inch disks also find room: Configuration includes two mounting frames for hard drives and SSDs in both installation sizes. If necessary, the case converts in no time to support the installation of longer graphic cards: The eight hard drive bays are divided, with two firmly installed and a separate modular hard drive cage. By removing the middle three-cage, enough room is created for up to 40 cm long graphic cards.

In regards to the other functions Sharkoon focuses on proven comfort: The mainboard tray is provided with a CPU cooler mount opening and feedthroughs for orderly and concealed cable relocation, the drives assembly occurs with practical quick-locking mechanisms, the power supply is positioned on the floor of the case directly over a dust filter protected air intake, and in the rear two rubberized hoses are provided.

The Sharkoon T28 measures 475 x 200 x 440 mm (L x B x H) and weighs 6.6 kg. The maximum CPU cooler height averages 16.5 cm, the maximum power supply length is 29 cm.

End customers will find the Sharkoon T28 case available immediately for the suggested manufacturer’s price of 54.90 euros from authorized retailers.

Source:http://hothardware.com/News/Sharkoons-T28-ATX-Case-Designed-For-Easy-HDD-Installation-and-Graphics-Card-Legroom/

Highest Beta in the Computer Hardware Industry Detected for Silicon Graphics International (SGI, SSYS, CRAY)

December 14th, 2011

Below are the three companies in the Computer Hardware industry with the highest betas. Higher-beta stocks mean greater volatility and are therefore generally considered to be riskier but also may provide the potential for higher returns.

Silicon Graphics International (NYSE:SGI) is highest with a beta of 1.6. Silicon Graphics International Corporation manufactures large-scale clustered computing, clustered storage and high performance computing products, and offers data center services. Silicon Graphics International has traded 130,000 shares thus far today, vs. average volume of 466,000 shares per day. The stock has outperformed the Dow (1.3% to the Dow’s 0.4%) and outperformed the S&P 500 (1.3% to the S&P’s 0.3%) during today’s trading.

Following is Stratasys (NASDAQ:SSYS) with a beta of 1.4.

Finishing up the top three is Cray (NASDAQ:CRAY), with a beta of 1.3.

Source:http://www.fnno.com/story/fast-lane/331-highest-beta-computer-hardware-industry-detected-silicon-graphics-international-sgi-ssys-cray-fast-lane

Relatively Good Performance Detected in Shares of Silicon Graphics International in the Computer Hardware Industry (SGI, AAPL, DBD, DELL, NCR)

September 6th, 2011

We looked at the Computer Hardware industry and measured relative performance to find the top stocks. Relative outperformance is a bullish sign of underlying fundamental and technical strength. We look at yesterday’s price action of all companies in this peer group.

Silicon Graphics International ranks first with a loss of 0.27%; Apple ranks second with a loss of 1.83%; and Diebold ranks third with a loss of 3.03%.

Dell follows with a loss of 3.13% and NCR rounds out the top five with a loss of 4.04%.

Silicon Graphics International Corporation manufactures large-scale clustered computing, clustered storage and high performance computing products, and offers data center services.

Source:http://www.fnno.com/story/fast-lane/331-relatively-good-performance-detected-shares-silicon-graphics-international-computer-hardware-industry-sgi-aa

Mentor Graphics Donates Veloce Emulator to Portland State University

August 23rd, 2011

Mentor Graphics Corporation /quotes/zigman/75299/quotes/nls/ment MENT +0.61% today announced it has donated a Veloce(R) Solo emulator to Portland State University (PSU), and has worked with the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) department at PSU to integrate hardware assisted (emulation) technology information into both the upper division undergraduate and graduate curriculum.

In integrated circuit design, hardware emulation is the process of imitating the behavior of one or more pieces of hardware with another piece of hardware, typically a special purpose emulation system. The goal is normally debugging of the system being designed. Often an emulator is fast enough to be plugged into a working target system in place of a yet-to-be-built chip, so the whole system can be debugged with live data.

“As electronic systems move aggressively toward increased complexity, there becomes a greater demand for design verification and validation engineers,” said Renjeng Su, Dean of the Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science, Portland State University. “With Mentor’s help, we’ve developed much more sophisticated design examples and labs that allow our students to learn cutting-edge verification methods and tools. This means they enter the workforce with real-world experience.”

At PSU some undergraduates, and many graduate students, take an ASIC design course and the graduate students follow that with an ASIC verification course. These two courses were chosen to introduce hardware emulation into the curriculum because of the natural fit with the current content and because of the relatively large enrollment in those classes. In the Fall of 2010, PSU added coverage of hardware emulation in a graduate course in high-level synthesis and design automation.

“The faculty in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department teaches advanced methods, but until recently their design examples were limited to the component level or descriptions of systems at a low level of complexity,” said Greg Hinckley, president and COO at Mentor Graphics. “With the joint efforts of PSU and Mentor, we have been able to bring the necessary tools and expertise together to raise the level of complexity of classroom examples and challenge the students to achieve a higher level of learning.”

Mentor Higher Education Program

Mentor Graphics, a technology leader in electronic design automation (EDA) with the broadest industry portfolio of best-in-class products, founded the Higher Education Program (HEP) in 1985 to further the development of skilled engineers within the electronics industry. HEP provides schools around the globe with leading-edge design tools for classroom instruction and academic research to help ensure that engineering graduates enter into industry proficient in state-of-the-art tools and techniques. To date, Mentor Graphics is proud to have partnered with more than 1200 academic institutions worldwide.

About Mentor Graphics

Mentor Graphics Corporation /quotes/zigman/75299/quotes/nls/ment MENT +0.61% is a world leader in electronic hardware and software design solutions, providing products, consulting services and award-winning support for the world’s most successful electronic, semiconductor and systems companies. Established in 1981, the company reported revenues over the last 12 months of about $915 million. Corporate headquarters are located at 8005 S.W. Boeckman Road, Wilsonville, Oregon 97070-7777. World Wide Web site: http://www.mentor.com/ .

(Mentor Graphics and Veloce are registered trademarks of Mentor Graphics Corporation. All other company or product names are the registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective owners.)

Source:http://www.marketwatch.com/story/mentor-graphics-donates-veloce-emulator-to-portland-state-university-2011-08-22?reflink=MW_news_stmp

Computers synthesize sounds to go with graphics

August 9th, 2011

Computer-generated imagery usually relies on recorded sound to complete the illusion. Recordings can, however, limit the range of sounds you can produce, especially in future virtual reality environments where you can’t always know ahead of time what the action will be.

Doug James, associate professor of computer science, develops computer algorithms to synthesize sound “on the fly” based on simulated physics models. His research group has already invented sound synthesis methods for splashing fluids, fracturing glass and other solids, and noisy thin shells such as sheet metal.

Now they have devised methods for synthesizing more realistic sounds of hard objects colliding and the roar of fire. They report their latest work at the 2011 ACM SIGGRAPH computer graphics conference in Vancouver, Canada, Aug. 7-11.

To synthesize collision sounds, the computer calculates the forces computer-generated objects would exert if they were real, how those forces would make the objects vibrate and how those vibrations transfer to the air to make sound.

Previous efforts often assumed that the contacting objects were rigid, but “in reality, there is no such thing as a rigid object,” the researchers say. Objects vibrate when they collide, which can produce further chattering and squeaking sounds. Resolving all the frictional contact events between rapidly vibrating objects is computationally expensive. To speed things up, their algorithm simulates only the fraction of contacts and vibrations needed to synthesize the sound.

“If you set a box on a flat surface there are many contacts,” James explained. “We identify a small set of physically faithful contacts, the simplest set that will get the job done.” Similarly, the algorithm selects from many different ways the objects can vibrate, ignoring those that produce inaudible sounds.

Demonstrations include the sound of a ruler overhanging the edge of table and “buzzing” when plucked, pounding on a table to make dishes clatter and ring and the varied sounds of a Rube Goldberg machine that rolls marbles into a cup that moves a lever that pushes a bunny into a shopping cart that rolls downhill.

Fire is animated by mimicking the chemical reactions and fluid-like flow of burning gases. But flame sounds come from things that happen very rapidly in the expanding gases, and computer animators do not need to model those costly details to get good-looking flames.

“We can simulate the low-frequency sound for flame animations, but not all the fiery details,” James explained, “so we rely on models based on real fire sounds to paint the fiery details onto the low-frequency sound.” This keeps the cost down and has the added benefit of providing “style controls” based on what type of real flame sound is used as input data.

The researchers demonstrated with a fire-breathing dragon statue, a candle in the wind, a torch swinging through the air, a jet of flame injected into a small chamber and a burning brick. The last simulation was run with several variations of the sound-synthesis method, and the results compared with a high-speed video and sound recording of a real burning brick.

The flame sounds still lack some of the “whoosh” in the middle frequencies, the researchers noted, and the process is not yet ready for real-time applications, needing several hours to synthesize fire sound for a short video clip, but they say more powerful parallel hardware will help.

The research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation, The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and Intel.

Source:http://www.ecnmag.com/News/Feeds/2011/08/blogs-the-cutting-edge-computers-synthesize-sounds-to-go-with-graphics/

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