More G80 features abound
As if we mere mortals needed more reasons to be
excited about G80, here are a couple more tidbits: 128-bit high dynamic-range
and antialiasing with 16X sampling.
The high dynamic-range (HDR) engine found in GeForce 7950 and Radeon series
graphics cards is technically a 64-bit rendering. This new HDR approach
comes from a file format developed by Industrial Light and Magic (the
LucasFilm guys). In a nutshell, we will have 128-bit floating
point HDR as soon as applications adopt code to use it. OpenEXR's features include:
- Higher dynamic range and
color precision than existing 8- and 10-bit image file formats.
- Support for 16-bit
floating-point, 32-bit floating-point, and 32-bit integer pixels. The
16-bit floating-point format, called "half", is compatible with
the half data type in NVIDIA's Cg graphics language and is supported
natively on their new GeForce FX and Quadro FX 3D graphics solutions.
- Multiple lossless
image compression algorithms. Some of the included codecs can achieve 2:1
lossless compression ratios on images with film grain.
- Extensibility. New
compression codecs and image types can easily be added by extending the
C++ classes included in the OpenEXR software distribution. New image
attributes (strings, vectors, integers, etc.) can be added to OpenEXR
image headers without affecting backward compatibility with existing
OpenEXR applications.
NVIDIA already has 16X AA available for SLI
applications. The GeForce 8800 will be the first card to feature 16X AA
on a single GPU. Previous generations of GeForce cards have only been
able to support 8X antialiasing in single-card configurations.
This new 16X AA and 128-bit HDR will be part of another new engine, similar in
spirit to PureVideo and the Quantum
Effects engines also featured on G80.
"It's okay. The scenarios aren't that clear. But it's good looking. [Steve Jobs] does good design, and [the iPad] is absolutely a good example of that." -- Bill Gates on the Apple iPad
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