NVIDIA announced that they are starting a new initiative to merge driver releases for desktops and notebooks with their Verde program. Starting with the 256 ‘Fermi’ series of cards, all future driver releases will be universally compatible. This should come as great news to many notebook users who have been left behind with older driver versions, and often had to go through their notebook manufacturers for officially compatible releases.
While gamers are certainly going to benefit from this, it is also good news for those who want utilize programs that incorporate CUDA enabled performance enhancements. NVIDIA’s 197 series driver will also enable utilization of 3D displays, and offer significant performance boosts for various games and applications.
It is important to note that there are a few strings attached with this new approach. These releases will be compatible with notebooks which feature only discrete solutions and NVIDIA branded integrated graphics. Hot Hardware said, “Notebooks with discrete GPUs, hybrid solutions that feature NVIDIA IGPs, and Optimus enabled notebooks will be compatible. Notebooks with multi-vendor hybrid solutions, i.e. those with integrated Intel graphics and discrete NVIDIA graphics, will not be supported.”
Feature parity between the driver sets is a welcome change, but lack of support for hybrid solutions puts a damper on the impact of this move since a large number of notebooks feature multi-vendor GPUs. Key examples of these types of machines include the Alienware M11x and Apple’s complete line-up of MacBook Pros.
In the video, Chris Pedersen of Nvidia compares an old netbook with just an Intel Atom to a newer Asus EEPC 1201PN that features ION. He runs three different test suites for the comparison: map zooming, flying 3D images, and SVG animation. The results speak for themselves:
At MIX 10, Microsoft released the IE9 Platform Preview which demonstrated a new JavaScript engine called Chakra, expanded support for CSS3, SVG, and HTML5, and hardware acceleration through Direct2D and DirectWrite.
Two years later, Nvidia is finally ready to unveil a new piece of graphics silicon aimed at consumers and the enthusiast crowd based on its latest Fermi architecture. The GeForce GTX 280 was the company’s last big launch that comprised of innovative technology, at the time rewriting the record books as the fastest single-GPU graphics card. Besides the dual-GPU GeForce GTX 295 that went on sale months later, anything after the GTX 280 has been a rehash of the same GT200b graphics core.
The company battled it out against the ATI Radeon HD 4800 series for a while, but long story short, last September ATI was already shipping brand new parts that were faster and more efficient, while Nvidia wasn’t giving out any specific details on Fermi. These new Radeons became the first products to steal the performance crown away from Nvidia in a long time, and they did so in a very convincing fashion.
Nvidia’s new Fermi architecture is debuting with the GeForce GTX 480 and GeForce GTX 470 graphics cards. Designed to be the next evolution in GPU computing, we are excited to see what these new boards are capable of, and whether or not they’ll be able to bring Nvidia back into the spotlight.
Nvidia introduced the next-generation ION graphics processor today. Boasting ten times the performance of integrated graphics, the ION allows for full 1080p streaming video. New ION netbooks also utilize Nvidia Optimus technology. By switching between the Nvidia discrete GPU and Intel integrated graphics depending on workload, the user experiences increased battery life and performance.
According to Marketwire, more than 30 products are expected to launch by this summer. The ten inch Acer Aspire One 532G and twelve inch Asus 1201PN look to be the first ION netbooks to hit the market.
The press release goes on to list the following facts about the ION GPU:
It’s a discrete GPU (graphics processing unit) with dedicated memory that attaches to an Intel Atom Pine Trail CPU via PCI Express.
It supports streaming HD video on sites like YouTube HD, and smooth gaming performance on titles like World of Warcraft and Spore.
ION netbooks feature NVIDIA Optimus technology, which automatically assigns processing chores to the NVIDIA ION GPU or integrated graphics.
Optimus powers down the GPU for basic tasks like web surfing, further extending battery life. When more graphics horsepower is needed for playing 3D games, running videos, or using GPU compute applications, Optimus automatically enables the ION GPU.
It will be available starting in April with the Acer Aspire One 532G netbook.
It accelerates a growing list of media-rich applications including Muvee Reveal for making home movies, Badaboom for media conversion, Total Media Theater and PowerDVD 9 for watching HD video or instantly upscaling standard definition video to near-HD quality.
