The 29th of July, how scary is that? - One month already down into the second half of the year and what a start to the back end of the year it's been. Really, out of nowhere we've seen NVIDIA bounce back with a model that everyone wants to get their hands on and while ATI at the moment continue to hold the value for money cards, when it comes to the high budget folks it looks like NVIDIA may have taken it in the most important category, the $200 bracket.

It's going to be an interesting second half and I'm sure we're going to see new models from both the green and red team. For now, though, let's look at the latest Cat drivers.

Source: TweakTown.com

AMD Product Manager for ATI Eyefinity (AMD's multi-display technology), Shane Parfitt, has tweeted about possible performance improvements for QuadFire users, i.e., dual AMD/ATI Radeon HD 5970 users. Hopefully, this will address issues of negative scaling, crashes, and less-than-impressive performance reported by many ultra-enthusiast customers with their high-dollar-investment rigs. These issues have also been highlighted by recent tests featuring NVIDIA's competing Surround Vision multi-display technology.


Source - Twitter

The hits just keep coming for NVIDIA. First the company was named as the worst performing stock of 2010, then they lose their case to RAMBUS and now the company is warning of a 2Q revenue shortfall. Ouch. Thanks to R. Groenestein for the heads up.

"The Santa Clara, Calif.-based graphics chip supplier said it expects revenue for its second quarter ending August 1 to be lower than the guidance provided with the company's financial results for the first quarter. Nvidia supplies graphics processing units, or GPUs, to all major computer makers, including Hewlett-Packard, Dell, and Apple."

Source: [H]ard|OCP

Twelve-core Xeons and a 5870 for Apple's best desktop.

The Apple - AMD deal just got even better, at least for ATI. Despite the fact that Steve Jobs only likes and uses Intel CPUs, it didn't stop this great „don't hold it that way“ leader to go after ATI's graphics. Again we beleive that Apple made a great deal with ATI, and it doesn’t look like Apple guys wanted Fermi cards in their Mac Pro machines.

The choice of ATI only is even more surprising as with these Mac Pro machines Geforce GTX 460 could be a nice option, but Apple only chose to use Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB of GDDR5 or Radeon HD 5870 with 1GB of GDDR5.
One of the interesting things for video editing guys might be the fact that ATI Radeon 5000 cards do support up to six displays.

This machine will have a choice of a single quad core Xeon, two of them, or even two six-core Xeons resulting with a 12-core beast that should be great in rendering and similar tasks. The twelve-core version should arrive in a month's time, but this is most likely the time of availability for all new Mac Pro models.

ATI guys can only be happy about it, and we wonder if Bob Drebin, the previous Chief Technology Officer of AMD that now works in Apple's chip group had something to do with this decision. You never know.

You can find more details here.

Source: Fudzilla

The new FirePro drivers are currently in beta.

July 28, 2010 -- Whether you are an owner of an ATI FirePro V3800 that retails for just over $100 USD, the proud owner of an ATI FirePro V8800 that goes for over $1,300 USD, or any of the FirePro products in-between, you will want to update your graphics driver when AMD puts out their next stable software update. Back in March AMD put out an amazing FirePro Linux driver that increased the performance of their workstation graphics cards already on the market (and the other Evergreen-based workstation cards that entered the market soon after) by an astonishing amount. Our independent tests of this proprietary Linux driver update found that the performance in some workstation applications had increased by up to 59% by simply installing this updated driver while other OpenGL tests had just improved rather modestly with 20%+ gains. AMD though is preparing to release another driver update for Microsoft Windows and Linux that ups their workstation graphics performance even more! We have run some tests of this new beta driver against their older driver with both their low-end and ultra-high-end FirePro products and have found the improvements again to be astonishing.

Source: Phoronix

Corporate business is a harsh and uncaring world. That's why regulatory bodies such as the SEC exist. Read about how Intel allegedly paid Dell to not use AMD products.

Though last week's settlement between the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Dell was anticipated -- the computer maker admitted no wrongdoing and agreed to pay about $100 million in fines -- it was nevertheless a stunning event both in terms of the charges it leveled against Dell and those it reinforced aginst semiconductor giant Intel.

Amid accusations of both earnings manipulation and apparent antitrust violations, the SEC paints a picture of the computer industry in which the near-monopolist Intel (INTC, Fortune 500) is the master puppeteer and the computer makers are little more than its marionettes. When Intel rival AMD (AMD, Fortune 500) first propounded this dark view of the world in an antitrust suit against Intel in June 2005 it seemed like a wacky conspiracy theory; now it has been endorsed by regulators for 30 countries, including ours.

In its complaint, the SEC alleges that, from May 2001 through January 2006, Dell (DELL, Fortune 500) created the false impression that it had met or exceeded analysts' consensus earnings-per-share expectations in 20 straight quarters. In reality, says the SEC, Dell wouldn't have met its numbers once during that period without secret payments from Intel that were made in exchange for Dell's agreement not to use any AMD chips.

Thus, the SEC has now become the sixth regulatory body worldwide -- and the third in the United States -- to conclude that Intel made improper payments throughout much of the last decade to persuade computer makers to bar or sharply limit their use of AMD chips.

Read the full article on CNN Money.

Zeno Clash developer ACE Team believes PC owners are "more open" to weird game concepts.

Speaking to Eurogamer, co-founder Carlos Bordeu said that may have been the reason Zeno Clash struggled on Xbox Live Arcade.

"I don't know whether it was because most people had already played Zeno Clash on PC, or that the console game launched a year later, but we definitely had much stronger sales on PC than on Xbox 360," Bordeu revealed. "It hasn't sold nearly as well."

"Zeno Clash was definitely weirder than most games, and it would be absurd to think that didn't put-off some people.

"PC players are maybe more open to trying weird games - games that aren't so mass market," he added. "But I don't know that I'd put it as harshly as PC gamers are smart and console gamers are stupid."

Bordeu accidentally let slip that "maybe we might get a nice surprise later this year when we might have some sort of price promotion [for Zeno Clash on XBLA]". Maybe I shouldn't be saying that," he quickly added, "as it's not confirmed."

He went on to point out that Zeno Clash had "extremely good" sales in Russia, where everybody is mad.

Source: Eurogamer

Sound Blaster X-Fi MB2 out.

Key Features of Sound Blaster X-Fi MB2:

• THX TruStudio Pro audio technology creates unprecedented levels of audio realism, adds dynamics and punch to every gunshot, explosion and gaming sound; and includes stunning surround effects, producing an incredibly realistic surround sound experience even from just a pair of stereo headphones
• Creative EAX Advanced HD 5.0 features state-of-the-art multi-environment rendering and reverb modelling, delivering an amazingly realistic and immersive 3D gaming experience
• Creative VoiceFX technology allows users to morph their voices into other personas to help players stay in character and add flair to their online role-playing experiences
• Creative ALchemy is a powerful tool that restores EAX effects and 3D surround audio for legacy, DirectSound 3D game titles running on Windows Vista and Windows 7, re-enabling that same great gaming experience
• Sound Blaster X-Fi MB2 comes with native OpenAL support, ensuring compatibility with a wide range of PC games developed with OpenAL for an incredible 3D audio experience

For more information please visit this page.

Source: techPowerUp!

NVIDIA's march into the mainstream graphics segment with graphics processors derived from the Fermi architecture is headed by the GF106 GPU.

One of the first SKUs based on it us the GeForce GTS 450. PCB drawings of its reference board surfaced last week. According to fresh details sourced by Donanim Haber, NVIDIA pushed back the launch of GTS 450 from 31st August to 13th September. The site also sourced clock speeds of the SKU, which are 789 MHz (core), and 3760 MHz or 940 MHz actual (memory). The GPU on this SKU has a 128-bit wide memory interface, carrying 1 GB of GDDR5 memory. NVIDIA is targeting the $160 price point with the GTS 450.

Source: techPowerUp!

Advanced Micro Devices passed NVIDIA in graphics chip shipments in the second quarter, according to a report from a marketing research on Wednesday, adding to NVIDIA's woes.

Advanced Micro Devices passed Nvidia in graphics chip shipments in the second quarter, according to a report from a marketing research on Wednesday, adding to Nvidia's woes.

AMD's ATI graphics unit took 51 percent of the standalone, or "discrete," graphics chip market compared to Nvidia's share that was just shy of 49 percent, according to Mercury Research, a Cave Creek, Arizona firm that tracks graphics chip shipments. This is a sharp reversal from the same period a year ago when Nvidia had about 59 percent of the market and AMD had just under 41 percent.

Total market figures for the second quarter of 2010 had Intel with a 54.3 percent share, AMD with 24.5 percent, and Nvidia with 19.8 percent. This, also, is a setback for Nvidia: in the second quarter of last year, Nvidia had a 29.6 percent share compared to AMD's 18.2 percent.

NVIDIA warned Wednesday that revenue would fall short of earlier projections. The warning came a day after Apple moved its iMac and Mac Pro lines to AMD graphics chips, dropping Nvidia.

Source: CNET News

AMD is taking Eyefinity and multi-display technologies to new heights as they demonstrate 40 synchronized displays display 92 megapixels from 10 AMD FirePro professional workstation cards, each card capable of 4 displays - twice as many as NVIDIA's just-launched Quadro 5000.

People are amazed these 40 displays, with more than 92 megapixels of resolution are powered by just 10 ATI FirePro™ V8800 graphics accelerators. The ATI S400 Synchronization module ensures all of the monitors are synchronized. Not only is the solution easier to config with less than half of the number of cards required by the ‘lime green guys’, the price is less than half as well[i].

Thanks to our ATI Eyefinity Technology, each ATI FirePro V8800 graphics card is able to drive four displays. Each Colfax workstation powering the wall features up to three V8800s and can power 12 displays.

On the other hand, each Nvidia Quadro 5000 card is only able to drive two displays, which means you need twice as many cards in a comparable workstation, resulting in increased complexity, space, systems and power consumption. Further, the Nvidia synchronization module (G-sync) is limited to two GPUs, limiting the total number of outputs per system to four. With the ATI FirePro S400 sync module supporting four GPUs and each GPU supporting four outputs, ATI can drive up to 16 displays per workstation. This factor-of-four advantage in density translates directly into less complexity, space, systems and power.

The combination of Colfax, Vizrt and ATI FirePro graphics, and the unprecedented density of displays per workstation offered by ATI Eyefinity Technology, brings to life the new possibilities in digital media and video displays.

Read the whole blog posting by Janet Matsuda, Senior Director of Professional Graphics at AMD, on the AMD@Work Blog.

New southbridge, grrr . . . and I just bought an SB850 board with an NEC USB 3.0 chip.

Although USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gb/s served as features central to new motherboard models by manufacturers for an entire year, their adoption by chipset vendors has been rather slow. While AMD has integrated SATA 6 Gb/s into its SB850 southbridge, which features a 6-port SATA 6 Gb/s RAID controller, neither Intel nor AMD have USB 3.0 integrated, with no real indication Intel doing so in the foreseeable future. Sources in the motherboard industry, however, reveal that AMD is designing a new southbridge that integrates a USB 3.0 controller, just like present chipsets have USB 2.0.

AMD's move follows a recent announcement of collaboration with Renesas, the company behind the popular NEC uPD720200 controller, to promote USB 3.0 as an industry standard, and a new universal UASP driver model for USB 3.0 controllers. The new southbridge is codenamed "Hudson D1", which will release along with AMD's 40 nm Ontario Fusion APUs in Q4-2010. The company also plans to release the Llano Fusion APU in 2011.

Source: techPowerUp!

Apparently the community's laments are not falling on deaf ears -- straight from the horses mouth (sorry, Terry).


Source - Twitter

EverQuest II is the latest subscription MMO to jump on the free-to-play bandwagon.

Sony Online Entertainment has announced that it's to launch a free service called EverQuest II Extended later this year.

A beta test for Extended is expected to begin "on or around" 17th August.

The original subscription offering will continue alongside this new service. Extended will provide access to all EverQuest II's content through free and optional paid membership levels. By and large - with the exception of the last expansion Sentinel's Fate - content is free, but features are restricted by level.

There are four levels of membership. Bronze is free; Silver is a one-time $10 purchase; Gold is a $15 monthly membership subscription; and Platinum is $200 for a year.

Only Platinum members can access the latest expansion Sentinel's Fate. All levels have access to four races, with the remaining being purchasable. Bronze and Silver can access eight classes for free, Gold and Platinum get all of them. All but Platinum members will have to pay to extende the level cap from 80 to 90.

Across the membership tiers, there are varying restrictions to equipment grades, character slots, bag slots, the amount of gold you can hold per level, whether you can send and receive mail, how many quests you can have active and the level of customer service support available to you.

Source: Eurogamer

Atari and Cryptic have launched Season Two of their space MMO Star Trek Online, and cut the price of the retail game to $19.99.

The Season Two: Ancient Enemies update increases the level cap to 51, including new ranks to progress through in both the Federation and Klingon factions.

There are new Tier 5 ships, new gear rewards, and high-level versions of every Special Task Force mission and Fleet Action. Klingons get eight new Episodes to play through, while Federation players can enjoy the new Diplomatic Corps system which allows for peaceful interaction with new civilisations, just like Gene Roddenberry would have wanted.

Weekly feature Episodes will begin in August and Dabo, a casino mini-game, is coming soon.

Sounds like a substantial update, all told.

Source: Eurogamer

New ATI FirePro, bébé! (jealous?)

AMD announced that its latest generation of ATI FirePro™ professional graphics cards have received 47 application certifications from leading ISVs. In addition, a soon to be released beta driver is expected to deliver considerable performance gains on popular computer aided design (CAD) and digital content creation (DCC) applications over the previous generation. End-users will have the opportunity to experience the latest ATI FirePro professional graphics solutions at the show. Demonstrations will showcase an extensive ecosystem of software partners and customers that bring to life superior realism, workflow productivity and application performance.

Source: [H]ard|OCP

Apple has released it's new iMac line, featuring AMD ATI Radeon HD 4000 and HD 5000 series graphics processors.


Prices start at $1,199 for a 21.5" 3GHz Core i3 with a Radeon HD 4670, midrange models with ATI Radeon HD 5670 for $1499 and $1699, with the top end $1999 27.5" model using Intel's 2.8Ghz Core i5 and a Radeon HD 5750.


See the new iMACs at the Apple store.

One of the most hotly-debated topics right now is the subject of anti-aliasing in StarCraft II. Despite ten years development time, Blizzard has opted not to release the game with in-game AA support, leaving image quality enthusiasts few options in addressing jaggies.

NVIDIA was quick off the mark -- faster than a speeding bullet, in fact -- in offering forced anti-aliasing via the Control Panel for GeForce products. However, it comes at a significant performance penalty, as it is a somewhat "brute force" method.

HardwareCanucks was able to get a clarification from AMD about the status of offering a forced AA mode for StarCraft II on Radeon HD graphics cards:

AMD constantly strives to deliver great gaming experiences for our customers and the upcoming launch of Starcraft II is no exception. Blizzard’s focus on incredible game play for all, means that gamers using ATI Radeon(tm) products can enjoy smooth HD gameplay and industry leading image quality with our current generation of ATI Radeon products as well as many of our past generation cards.

In discussions during the development of StarCraft II, Blizzard indicated that they would not initially include options to set levels of in-game anti-aliasing (“AA”). This meant that support for AA within StarCraft II would only be made possible by including it in the driver, an approach that could significantly impact performance.

Some third party reviews of the Starcraft II beta echo our concerns that AA can cause gameplay impairment. In these reviews, the third parties found that 4x AA led to a reduction in fps rendering at lower screen resolutions, which only became more noticeable at larger resolutions.

After evaluating our options, our engineering team opted not to provide AA support for StarCraft II within the Catalyst Control Center, even though the competition has included AA support in their driver at launch.

We are committed to making AA perform at an acceptable level before we release it to our customers. We will continue to work with Blizzard on this matter and hope to offer our customers an acceptable AA solution at a later date.

Read more at the source - HardwareCanucks

So there you have it. NVIDIA offers you the option to override AA and enhance the game; AMD doesn't. What do you think? Should Blizzard have designed in AA from the start? Is it a better use of AMD's resources to work with Blizzard to add in-game image quality options, than to offer the choice via the driver? Is it AMD's place to manage the user experience by not offering options that impact performance? Will anyone care, as there is too much happening in SC II to notice a few jaggies?

NVIDIA and some of its key partners such as HP, ASUS, and EVGA are faced with an import ban after the FTC upheld RAMBUS's patent assertions for technology used in some NVIDIA products.

Chip designer Rambus won its fight with graphic chip maker Nvidia and other companies on Monday, as a trade panel ruled that Rambus patents had been infringed and ordered a halt to the import of infringing chips.

But Nvidia Corp said it would appeal the decision, extending an already lengthy legal battle.

In its final decision, the International Trade Commission said Nvidia, Hewlett-Packard Co (HPQ.N) and other companies infringed Rambus chip patents and issued an order barring the importation of any chip made with the infringing technology.

Nvidia would appeal, said Nvidia spokesman Hector Marinez in an emailed statement.

"There will be no impact on our customers or our business as a result of this ruling," he added. "We intend to take advantage of the mandatory European Commission License that is available. This will allow us and our partners to continue our business under the terms of that license and prevent the enforcement of any exclusion order."

Nvidia argued the patents in question in this suit were covered by a 2009 agreement that Rambus made with the European Commission to resolve a standards-setting case.

Rambus said it was pleased with the win.

Other companies also found to infringe and subject to the import ban were ASUS Computer International Inc, Palit Multimedia Inc, MSI Computer Corp, EVGA Corp, DiabloTek Inc, Biostar Microtech Corp and BFG Technologies Inc.

An ITC judge ruled in January that three Rambus patents were violated. The patented technology controls and manages the flow of computer data to and from a chip's memory. The entire commission largely upheld that preliminary decision on Monday.

During this review period, the banned goods can be imported but only if the importer posts a bond equal to 100 percent of the value of the imports.

Source - Reuters

With Lord of the Rings Online shifting to a free-to-play model later in the year, a revamped version of the game taking this into account is currently in beta - If you fancy checking it out prior to its final release, then this competition is for you, as Elite Bastards have not one, not ten, but one hundred Lord of the Rings Online beta keys to give away!

For all of the details on how to enter, head over to Elite Bastards.

Welcome to Rage3D's new feature -- Catalyst Driver investigations. In this article, VW_Factor and caveman-jim look at performance improvements, new features, and general usability in today's new Catalyst 10.7 release -- which also offers some major improvements for Eyefinity.

ATI Catalyst 10.7 Driver Investigation

Click Here to discuss this driver investigation in Rage3D's community forums!

Jailbreaking is now legal -- on an iPhone, that is.

In what is being called a slap in the face to Apple (AAPL), new government rules are allowing iPhone owners to run applications that haven't received Apple's official blessing.

Apple has frowned on people tweaking their iPhone to allow unauthorized apps -- known as "jailbreaking" -- calling it unauthorized modification of its software, according to the Associated Press.

Source: MSN Money

The drivers are not available on AMD's Catalyst page, but they should be soon. Check the linked page for updates.

If you absolutely cannot wait, you can also grab them from ComputerBase.de right now.

Hi,

We have just released ATI Catalyst™ 10.7 for Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Linux platforms on http://www.amd.com.


Highlights of the ATI Catalyst™ 10.7 Windows release include:


New Features

ATI Eyefinity - HydraVision enhancements

• Maximizing a window across displays will now take user defined bezel compensation into account
• Automatically adjusts window position when dragging and dropping windows to ensure title bar visibility
• Proper dialog box placement - dialogs do not cross displays, are not hidden behind bezels, and can be designated to be shown on the users “preferred” display

Enhanced Pull-down detection

• The Pull-down detection algorithm has been enhanced for higher visual quality on certain types of video content
• Supported on the ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series

ATI CrossFireX technology – support for rotated displays

• This release of ATI Catalyst™ enables end users running supported ATI CrossFireX™ configurations to rotate their displays (single or ATI Eyefinity display configurations) and still enjoy the performance benefits of ATI CrossFireX technology

ATI Radeon GPU acceleration of VLC 1.1.1 Media Player

• Enables GPU acceleration of h.264 video content when using the VLC 1.1.1 Media Player – delivering a better user experience by consuming less system resources
• Supported on the ATI Radeon™ HD 5000 and ATI Radeon™ HD 4000 Series of products
• Requires VLC version 1.1.1 and later

Highlights of the Linux ATI Catalyst™ 10.7 release include:


New Features

Support for new Linux operating systems

• This release of ATI Catalyst™ Linux introduces support for the following new operating systems:
• Ubuntu 10.04 production support

ATI Eyefinity support

• ATI Catalyst™ 10.7 delivers support for ATI Eyefinity technology under all supported Linux distributions

For more information on ATI Catalyst™ 10.7 (for Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Linux versions), including all of the resolved issues in this release, please see the ATI Catalyst™ 10.7 release notes.

Source: AMD E-mail Notice

Click here to discuss the Windows version in the Rage3D forums. The Linux version can be discussed here.

AMD's Graphics Division has released a preview driver to support OpenGL ES 2.0. OpenGL ES is a platform for embedded systems that offers full function 2D and 3D graphics capabilities. Applications include phones, consoles, carputers, and tablets. OpenGL ES uses well-defined subsets of existing OpenGL desktop extensions, and 2.x offers fully programmable 3D graphics - unlike OpenGL ES 1.x.

This release will allow developers to create and test OpenGL Embedded Systems applications using programmable shader hardware. Given the embedded nature of the API and the applications, this is obviously part of creating the infrastructure for AMD's Fusion APU due (speculatively) in Q4 2010.

ATI Catalyst™ 10.7 Beta Driver Feature:
The release of this software driver from AMD delivers support for the OpenGL ES 2.0 industry standard being developed to bring plug-in free 3D graphics to the Internet through open-source web browsers.

This article applies to the following configuration(s):

• Hardware
  • ATI Radeon™ HD 5xxx and ATI Radeon Mobility equivalent series of products
  • ATI Radeon HD 4xxx and ATI Radeon Mobility equivalent series of products
  • ATI Radeon HD 3xxx and ATI Radeon Mobility equivalent series of products
  • ATI Radeon HD 2xxx and ATI Radeon Mobility equivalent series of products
  • ATI FirePro™ Professional series of products

• Software
  • ATI Catalyst Control Center

• Operating System(s)
  • Windows 7 32-bit Edition
  • Windows 7 64-bit Edition
  • Windows Vista 32-bit Edition
  • Windows Vista 64-bit Edition
  • Windows XP Professional / Home
  • Windows XP Media Center Edition
  • Windows XP 64-bit Edition

Download here.

DisplayPort might still be struggling to make itself heard in a market which still appears to be largely dominated by DVI and HDMI, but if you are looking to make use of two DisplayPort-capable PCs (and a monitor) then here's something which should make your life a whole lot easier: a KVM switch from StarTech which supports both DisplayPort and USB 2.0 devices.

The rear of the switch naturally handles all of the connectivity, starting out with the power input on the bottom left-hand corner of the unit. Next to this we find USB ports to allow for both a USB keyboard and mouse to be attached, as well as a USB hub for any other USB 2.0 devices you may wish to switch between two PCs. Next to those A-type USB connectors are a pair of B-type connectors for connecting the KVM to the two PCs you wish to switch USB devices between.

Above this we find three DisplayPort connectors - One for the console (i.e. to connect your monitor itself to the KVM), and then two inputs for the two DisplayPort PCs you're connecting to the KVM. All in all, this makes the entire device nice and easy to set up, while the paper manual included gives more advice about setting up a keyboard hotkey to allow for switching via this mechanism as an alternative to the button on the front of the KVM itself.

Read the full review of this product at Elite Bastards.