"Nvidia first ? and perhaps only ? user of DDR II until 2004"  
 
"Nvidia Corp. will become the first mainstream user of DDR II memory when it announces its NV30 PC graphics processor at Comdex Monday (Nov. 1. However, Intel Corp. is not expected to support the memory type for broader use in PC main memory until 2004.  
Although the ATI part has been demonstrated running with DDR-II memory, sources said the DRAM was running in a DDR-I compatibility mode. The part was not designed for use with DDR-II, according to sources." --EE times  

A test of the non-textured stencil shadow speed showed a GF3 about 20% faster
than the 8500. I believe that Nvidia has a slightly higher performance memory
architecture.

NVDA article in IBD for Monday  
by: soxrulzit  
11/16/02 08:18 am  
Msg: 48602 of 48607  
 
 
This article is to appear in "Investor's Business Daily" for Monday, November 18, 2002  
 
You can view it, if you have an account to IBD, today.  
http://www.investors.com/editorial/tech.asp?v=11/16  
..............................................................................................  
Internet & Technology  
Monday, November 18, 2002  
 
Nvidia Chips Away At Real Animation  
BY JAMES DETAR  
 
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY  
 
Is it real, or is it digital?  
 
The quality of recent animated movies like "Shrek" and "Monsters Inc." makes it hard at times to tell whether a character's real or from a computer.  
 
Graphics chipmaker Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) plans to unveil its latest line of chips on Monday. Nvidia says its new GeForce FX chips will bring to home video games the same level of animation in today's Hollywood movies. The company's earlier chips were part of the technology used to make "Shrek" and "Monsters Inc."  
 
"We've been trying to bring 3-D graphics to the mass market," said Mike Hara, Nvidia vice president of investor relations. "We're moving at a rapid rate toward enabling people to do on a PC what people are able to do in cinema today."  
 
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSM) will make the chips for Nvidia. TSMC will make the devices using the latest process.  
 
The metal lines on the chips will be only 0.13 micron wide. That's less than 1/500th the width of a human hair. That will let Nvidia pack more transistors, and more features, onto the chips.  
 
And TSMC will use copper. Copper lines let electricity flow faster than the aluminum lines that are today's standard. The result is a faster-running chip.  
 
Some people say the Holy Grail in animation is to make people and scenery look perfectly real. With the release last year of the animated movie, "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within," the film industry took a huge step in that direction. The Columbia TriStar movie, also made with Nvidia chips, won acclaim for its realistic detail. Dr. Aki Ross, the movie's lead character, looks realistic down to individual strands of hair waving in the wind.  
 
Hara, however, doubts digital animation will ever be as real-looking as movies with real people. "That may be a challenge we never meet," he said. "To emulate a human would take an incredible amount of computing bandwidth.  
 
"The bandwidth needed just to show someone twiddling his or her fingers is beyond a supercomputer's bandwidth today. So how can you simulate a crowd of people clapping? The human is the ultimate challenge."  
 
Frame of reference is important in the animation field, he says. Nobody's seen a living, breathing toy. So there's no frame of reference, and that makes it easier to suspend disbelief.  
 
"The reason 'Toy Story' came off so well is we've never interacted with a toy. There's no way for a human brain to have a point of reference," Hara said.  
 
For just that reason, it's harder for people to believe they're seeing real people on screen when they watch digital animation. "I'm not sure we'll be able to flawlessly make a human in the next 10 years," Hara said.  
 
But Nvidia says GeForce FX chips will take digital animation a step in that direction. The chips will let game developers do "shading." That technique creates effects such as more realistic mouth movements in animated characters.  
 
The GeForce FX chips are set to go on sale in February. Gaming enthusiasts will be able to buy a graphics card with a GeForce FX chip for about $360, Nvidia officials say. They also say some workstation and PC makers plan to include the chips in new machines, including Fujitsu Siemens Computers.  

[quote]It's November and that means it's time for all of the AnandTech guys to pack up and head to Vegas for Comdex.  This year's Comdex is supposed to be smaller than last year's disappointing turnout, however despite that we are booked solid with meetings - in fact this year we've got more meetings than in any of the past several years of me going to Comdex.  
 
What to expect?  On Monday alone you'll see a review of Intel's Granite Bay chipset and a roundup of the first three motherboards to use it, NVIDIA's NV30 (only in technology preview form) and Intel's new Xeon MP and Xeon DP parts.  At the show there will be a ton of Granite Bay boards and we should begin to see some early information about Prescott and Springdale, we will also be able to get an idea of how far Springdale is along in development.

[quote]I'm sure many of you have recently read this story on x-bit labs which claimed to have revealed NV30 name. Right after this was posted, many disputed this as a hoax or a rumor. I must admit so did I. But...now I know its true. Want to know what convinced me? Click on Read More to find out
 
I was just browsing the nVidia website looking for some info on their partners and distributors when I came across a link to Technical Briefs for Channel Partners. There it was in black and white - first GeForce FX technical briefs.  
 
Of course the only ones available at the moment are the AGP 8X Technical Brief and nView one but the name on top of them is pretty clear - Geforce FX followed by Geforce 4, Geforce 4 TI, MX and etc...To see this for yourslef - just click HERE.
 
But that's not all! It appears that one of the business websites has already jumped the gun and released a story in which they talk about Geforce FX! In this story they quote Mike Hara, who is Nvidia's vice president of investor relations - so the article is not fake!
 
"Graphics chipmaker Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) plans to unveil its latest line of chips on Monday. Nvidia says its new GeForce FX chips will bring to home video games the same level of animation in today's Hollywood movies..."
 
"...The reason 'Toy Story' came off so well is we've never interacted with a toy. There's no way for a human brain to have a point of reference," Hara said.
 
For just that reason, it's harder for people to believe they're seeing real people on screen when they watch digital animation. "I'm not sure we'll be able to flawlessly make a human in the next 10 years," Hara said.
 
But Nvidia says GeForce FX chips will take digital animation a step in that direction. The chips will let game developers do "shading." That technique creates effects such as more realistic mouth movements in animated characters.
 
The GeForce FX chips are set to go on sale in February. Gaming enthusiasts will be able to buy a graphics card with a GeForce FX chip for about $360, Nvidia officials say. They also say some workstation and PC makers plan to include the chips in new machines, including Fujitsu Siemens Computers."
 
You can read the full article HERE. Thanks to Beyond3D forum member "mboeller" for that link.
 
So...anyone still has any doubts? You'll see very soon, Monday is it?
 
Update : It appears that NVIDIA has acted quickly and replaced the Technical Briefs for Channel Partners page with the old version, one that didn't reveal NV30 name. Very quick that was. Good job I saved the original look. If you want to see it, click on link below.

Tandis que la version 2.0+ des Pixel Shaders également supportée proposera jusqu'à 1024 instructions de couleurs et 1024 instructions de textures contre respectivement 64 et 32 pour la version 2.0 classique de DirectX 9.  

NVIDIA will finally unveil its long-awaited GeForce FX aka NV30 graphics processor. Although the company and its partners will not be able to start selling the actual products based on the novelty until January or even February, it will still be pretty interesting to see the capabilities of the GeForce FX. Unfortunately, NVIDIA does not plan to issue precise performance estimates at this time.