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NVIDIA VXGI Apollo 11 Demo Available
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NVIDIA VXGI Apollo 11 Demo Available

When NVIDIA held their press briefing on the upcoming GM204 Maxwell GPUs back in September, one of the big new features for Maxwell 2.0 was VXGI – Voxel Global Illumination. As part of the presentation, NVIDIA did their best to recreate the famous photo from the lunar landing that took place 45 years ago, and in the process they hoped to debunk some of the “inconsistencies” that conspiracy theorists have been going on about for decades.

Today, on 11/11, the Apollo 11 demo is now available to the public. Of course it’s doubtful anyone that believes in the conspiracy theories will change their mind thanks to the NVIDIA demo, but it’s at least a demonstration of VXGI that end users can run. Among other things, you can adjust camera exposure, sun position, and toggle Neil Armstrong on/off (he had to be outside the lunar module to take the photo after all), all of which affect the scene rendering in real time.

Since the Apollo 11 demo uses VXGI, it does require NVIDIA’s latest GM204 GPUs in order to run – Radeon and older GeForce users need not apply. I tested it with a GTX 970 and it ran “okay” (15~35 FPS, depending on the view), indicating as we suspected that you’ll need a whole lot of GPU power if you want to do this level of VXGI in a real-time game. The demo also appears to be locked to a resolution of 1920×1080, or at least there’s no feature to change the resolution within the demo itself. Considering the frame rates are already a bit low, however, trying to render VXGI at 2560×1440 would really require at least two GPUs to do it justice. [Update: reader fallaha56 passed along information below: from the command line you can use “-ResX [width] -ResY [height] -Fullscreen” to set a custom resolution; 4K support appears to require too much memory, but performance at 2560×1440 is quite choppy with a single GPU, as expected.]

Below is a gallery of screenshots from the demo, and if nothing else it’s a sign of things to come with global illumination. Real-time path tracing is still a long ways off for consumer hardware, but VXGI provides a better approximation of path tracing compared to existing algorithms and we could see the technology start showing up in games within the next year or two. The demo was built using Unreal Engine 4 as well, and Tim Sweeney has talked about voxel-based lighting in the past, which means there’s a good chance VXGI support could end up widely adopted by UE4-based games. In the famous words of Captain Picard, “Make it so!”

NVIDIA VXGI Apollo 11 Demo Available
  • Comments are Closed

NVIDIA VXGI Apollo 11 Demo Available

When NVIDIA held their press briefing on the upcoming GM204 Maxwell GPUs back in September, one of the big new features for Maxwell 2.0 was VXGI – Voxel Global Illumination. As part of the presentation, NVIDIA did their best to recreate the famous photo from the lunar landing that took place 45 years ago, and in the process they hoped to debunk some of the “inconsistencies” that conspiracy theorists have been going on about for decades.

Today, on 11/11, the Apollo 11 demo is now available to the public. Of course it’s doubtful anyone that believes in the conspiracy theories will change their mind thanks to the NVIDIA demo, but it’s at least a demonstration of VXGI that end users can run. Among other things, you can adjust camera exposure, sun position, and toggle Neil Armstrong on/off (he had to be outside the lunar module to take the photo after all), all of which affect the scene rendering in real time.

Since the Apollo 11 demo uses VXGI, it does require NVIDIA’s latest GM204 GPUs in order to run – Radeon and older GeForce users need not apply. I tested it with a GTX 970 and it ran “okay” (15~35 FPS, depending on the view), indicating as we suspected that you’ll need a whole lot of GPU power if you want to do this level of VXGI in a real-time game. The demo also appears to be locked to a resolution of 1920×1080, or at least there’s no feature to change the resolution within the demo itself. Considering the frame rates are already a bit low, however, trying to render VXGI at 2560×1440 would really require at least two GPUs to do it justice. [Update: reader fallaha56 passed along information below: from the command line you can use “-ResX [width] -ResY [height] -Fullscreen” to set a custom resolution; 4K support appears to require too much memory, but performance at 2560×1440 is quite choppy with a single GPU, as expected.]

Below is a gallery of screenshots from the demo, and if nothing else it’s a sign of things to come with global illumination. Real-time path tracing is still a long ways off for consumer hardware, but VXGI provides a better approximation of path tracing compared to existing algorithms and we could see the technology start showing up in games within the next year or two. The demo was built using Unreal Engine 4 as well, and Tim Sweeney has talked about voxel-based lighting in the past, which means there’s a good chance VXGI support could end up widely adopted by UE4-based games. In the famous words of Captain Picard, “Make it so!”

Intel Launches M.2 and Larger Capacity 2.5" SSD DC S3500 Models
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Intel Launches M.2 and Larger Capacity 2.5″ SSD DC S3500 Models

Two years ago Intel released the DC S3500 and S3700 SSDs that marked as the company’s first truly in-house SATA 6Gbps SSDs. Today Intel is adding M.2 form factor to the S3500 lineup along with higher capacity options in the regular 2.5″ size.

The original S3500 came in capacities ranging from as small as 80GB to up to 800GB, but with the increasing demand for high density storage, Intel is adding 1.2TB and 1.6TB offerings. There is no change in the Flash Translation Layer (FTL) design to accommadate the extra NAND nor are there any other firmware or hardware changes, so the new models simply have more NAND on the board.

The 1.2TB and 1.6TB models provide higher randon write speeds, which makes sense given the additional NAND. Typically steady-state random write performance increases with more NAND thanks to increased parallelism, although only to a certain threshold since more NAND also adds tracking overhead. In the case of the S3500, the 1.2TB model appears to be the sweetspot by offering 18.5K random write IOPS, whereas the 1.6TB SKU drops that figure to 14.6K IOPS. Moreover, write endurance scales nearly linearly with the capacity as the 1.2TB is rated at 660TB and the 1.6TB at 880TB, while the existing 600GB and 800GB models are rated at 330TB and 450TB respectively. 

The M.2 version of the S3500 is one of the first enterprise-class SSDs in M.2 form factor. Feature wise the M.2 models are equal to their 2.5″ counterparts, meaning that there is full power-loss protection, end-to-end data protection and AES-256 encryption. The M.2 models come in M.2 2280 form factor and due to the space constraints, only 80GB, 120GB and 340GB capacities are available. 

The M.2 models actually carry slightly higher random write speeds compared to their 2.5″ counterparts, although that comes at the slight expense of random read performance. Since there is no metal chassis to help with heat dissipation, the M.2 models are a bit more exposed to thermal throttling, although Intel assured that as long as there is enough airflow in the system the drive should stay within its operating temperatures and not throttle itself.

At this stage M.2 hasn’t really been adopted by the enterprise space yet, but there is a growing interest for it due to the space savings. Intel told me that they are in talks with multiple OEMs about integrating the M.2 S3500 to servers, but as of now the main market for the S3500 is embedded devices. This includes devices like ATMs, slot machines and cash registers, which are transitioning to SSDs to save space and increase reliability. The S3500 is certainly a good fit for that segment with its enterprise-class feature set, whereas most M.2 drives on the market lack features like full power-loss protection. 

While many consumer drives are selling at below $0.50/GB, the enterprise features and additional validation increase the cost of the S3500. At right below the $1 per GB mark, the S3500 is, however, a rather competitive drive in the entry-level enterprise segment.

Intel Launches M.2 and Larger Capacity 2.5" SSD DC S3500 Models
  • Comments are Closed

Intel Launches M.2 and Larger Capacity 2.5″ SSD DC S3500 Models

Two years ago Intel released the DC S3500 and S3700 SSDs that marked as the company’s first truly in-house SATA 6Gbps SSDs. Today Intel is adding M.2 form factor to the S3500 lineup along with higher capacity options in the regular 2.5″ size.

The original S3500 came in capacities ranging from as small as 80GB to up to 800GB, but with the increasing demand for high density storage, Intel is adding 1.2TB and 1.6TB offerings. There is no change in the Flash Translation Layer (FTL) design to accommadate the extra NAND nor are there any other firmware or hardware changes, so the new models simply have more NAND on the board.

The 1.2TB and 1.6TB models provide higher randon write speeds, which makes sense given the additional NAND. Typically steady-state random write performance increases with more NAND thanks to increased parallelism, although only to a certain threshold since more NAND also adds tracking overhead. In the case of the S3500, the 1.2TB model appears to be the sweetspot by offering 18.5K random write IOPS, whereas the 1.6TB SKU drops that figure to 14.6K IOPS. Moreover, write endurance scales nearly linearly with the capacity as the 1.2TB is rated at 660TB and the 1.6TB at 880TB, while the existing 600GB and 800GB models are rated at 330TB and 450TB respectively. 

The M.2 version of the S3500 is one of the first enterprise-class SSDs in M.2 form factor. Feature wise the M.2 models are equal to their 2.5″ counterparts, meaning that there is full power-loss protection, end-to-end data protection and AES-256 encryption. The M.2 models come in M.2 2280 form factor and due to the space constraints, only 80GB, 120GB and 340GB capacities are available. 

The M.2 models actually carry slightly higher random write speeds compared to their 2.5″ counterparts, although that comes at the slight expense of random read performance. Since there is no metal chassis to help with heat dissipation, the M.2 models are a bit more exposed to thermal throttling, although Intel assured that as long as there is enough airflow in the system the drive should stay within its operating temperatures and not throttle itself.

At this stage M.2 hasn’t really been adopted by the enterprise space yet, but there is a growing interest for it due to the space savings. Intel told me that they are in talks with multiple OEMs about integrating the M.2 S3500 to servers, but as of now the main market for the S3500 is embedded devices. This includes devices like ATMs, slot machines and cash registers, which are transitioning to SSDs to save space and increase reliability. The S3500 is certainly a good fit for that segment with its enterprise-class feature set, whereas most M.2 drives on the market lack features like full power-loss protection. 

While many consumer drives are selling at below $0.50/GB, the enterprise features and additional validation increase the cost of the S3500. At right below the $1 per GB mark, the S3500 is, however, a rather competitive drive in the entry-level enterprise segment.

HTC Offers The HTC One M8 For $299 In The Latest HTC Hot Deal
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HTC Offers The HTC One M8 For $299 In The Latest HTC Hot Deal

Last week HTC launched their new HTC Hot Deals website which offers deals on HTC products every Tuesday. The first deal was an offer that put their newly released Nexus 9 tablet on sale for 50% off of its normal retail price. A combination of limited quantities and technical issues left many users frustrated, which led HTC to apologize and commit to fixing the issues with the website in time for the next deal. Now Tuesday has arrived, and HTC’s latest deal is about to begin.

The deal for this week offers the first 200 buyers the HTC One (M8) for $299, which is a $350 savings off the original price. After the first 200 units are sold, the next 300 buyers will pay $499, which is still $150 in savings. The deal will begin in 15 minutes at 9:00 AM PT, and end at 9:00 PM PT, but any users who wish to take advantage of the offer should expect the number of units to sell out long before the actual end time. The link to HTC’s Hot Deals page is in the source below.

Source: HTC Hot Deals