VizWorld.com

Earlier this week, Nvidia’s Steve Scott took on the hype around the new Intel MIC system.  Acknowledging the power of a hybrid solution, he then picked apart their design and claims of “port-free performance boosts” from running your x86 code on MIC.

The recent news and industry reaction regarding Intel’s forthcoming “Many Integrated Core” (MIC) accelerator has been interesting to watch. It appears Intel, like NVIDIA and AMD, has now concluded that hybrid architectures are the proper response to the growing power constraints of high performance computing.

While I agree with this, some of the discussions around programming the upcoming MIC chips leave me scratching my head – particularly the notion that, because MIC runs the x86 instruction set, there’s no need to change your existing code, and your port will come for free.

It’s been covered widely, including over at HPCWire.

Scott is not arguing against the MIC as an accelerator, per se. He and most of the community are convinced that HPC needs a hybrid (or heterogeneous) computing to move performance forward without consuming unreasonable amounts of energy. Traditional CPUs, whose cores are optimized for single-threaded performance, are not designed for work requiring lots of throughput. For that type of computing, much better energy efficiency can be delivered using simpler, slower, but more numerous cores. Both GPUs and the MIC adhere to this paradigm; they just come at the problem from different architectural pedigrees

It’s an interesting design, but I think the real power isn’t necessarily in the Intel MIC hardware, but rather in the libraries and tools that Intel is finally developing to assist in the upcoming hybrid computing surge.  While you’ll always get better results from custom hand-tuning your code for these systems, it’s a huge boost to productivity to find that your existing libraries have already been ported, and you get a nice boost (but not the best) just from using their libraries.

In the end, I don’t think either NVidia’s or Intel’s MIC are the true path forward, but each will do their own part to push the technology forward into the right answer.

via No Free Lunch for Intel MIC (or GPU’s) « NVIDIA.

Hardware intel, mic, nvidia

A group of 100 scientists, engineers, and developers are working together for a bid at Google’s Lunar X Prize, a $30 million award to the first private funded team to land a rover on the moon.  Any bid will require tons of work in computations, hardware, and physics, but the German team is beefing up their systems with the power of NVidia Tesla GPU’s.

The PTS team will benefit from the Tesla GPUs at all stages of the mission. During preparation and planning, GPUs will be used to simulate millions of different mission scenarios. This will enable the team to improve launch and landing techniques by, for example, adjusting the timing and duration of thruster burns for course corrections, while minimizing the margin of error.

Once Asimov has reached its destination, the PTS team will use the computational power of Tesla GPUs to navigate and monitor the rover’s activities and generate highly detailed lunar maps from the transmitted stereoscopic 3D images.

via NVIDIA Helps Power Bid for 2015 Moon Mission — and $30 Million in Prizes – NVIDIA Newsroom.

Hardware, Science google, gpgpu, nvidia, tesla

For CAD folks, video cards are a required piece of kit that can often make or break a project when a deadline is looming.  If you’re looking to upgrade your own equipment and like NVidia products, Dell & Nvidia have come together to offer an “ROI” calculator, letting you pick your company details and software used and see how some of NVidia’s newest offerings can boost your productivity.

With the right hardware, you can dramatically increase your performance in CAD applications. And with this ROI calculator, you can find out by how much. Determine how many hours you’ll save on each project or see how short the payback period is on upgrades. Input your unique usage data to get customized results based on how and what you design.

via ROI Calculator | NVIDIA Quadro Workstations.

Hardware dell, nvidia

The upcoming issue of “Presence” will have an article on the findings of some researchers from Baylor University that looked at the various differences between gamepad interactions and the newer motion interaction systems available to consoles.  Not focusing on the technical aspects, they looked at the user perception issues and found no clear winner but fine details that put each system in the forefront for certain scenarios.

He said that the study shows that perceptions of naturalness are key to enjoyment, and that in some cases, it would feel more natural to add a type of controller suited to an activity, such as a sword. But Carbonara said that games in which the players make such movements as dancing or running, motion-based interactions without hand-held controllers are more natural. Moving toward a more natural user interface between the player and the game world can create a more immersive, realistic and fun experience, the authors said.

Some useful information to keep on hand for those people working in immersive environments like augmented reality or CAVE.

via Players get more pleasure from motion-based video games.

Hardware cave, virtual reality

The Economist has a nice piece on the growth of military training simulators and how they’ve become commonplace in training.  The article covers the growth of the defense simulation industry into a multi-million dollar industry, and going from huge training tools to rapid-development response tools, like the one below:

Another recent trend is the tighter integration of simulators with real combat. Chester Kennedy, vice-president of simulation engineering at Lockheed Martin, points to a 2007 battle in which insurgents took advantage of a tactical error by American soldiers to kill some of them. Within 24 hours Lockheed Martin had interviewed the survivors and then produced a simulator that placed other soldiers in the same situation so the mistake would not be repeated. The company now regularly simulates real battles.

via Monitor: This is not a video game | The Economist.

Hardware military, training

The brains at FireUser.com are running a contest to win a brand new AMD FirePro V5900, and all you have to do is post a comment on their site or tweet about your experience with any of the recent FirePro cards.

We believe the new line of FirePro cards and drivers are more stable and more reliable than any other graphics solution out there. But we want to hear unbiased reality from end users – from the single designer using PhotoShop CS5 to the multi-person CAD shop using a range of DCC and CAD/CAE apps.

Hit their sites for the full rules, but it’s an interesting way to reward the community for honestly reporting their experiences (Good or Bad) with the FirePro cards.  Hopefully someone will catalog all of the results, it could be a good basis for known issues and resolutions with the gear, as well as a great collection of user success stories.

via Experience FirePro! Sweepstakes – Qualify to Win a FirePro V5900 | FireUser Blog.

Hardware amd, contest, firepro

If you’ve wondered why your LG 3d Active Glasses won’t play nice with your Samsung TV or your Sony system, researchers at Curtin University have your answer.  In their new whitepaper “A Survey of 3D Sync IR Protocols” they cover the many differences in the various glasses.

The protocols were measured by connecting the emitter/dongle or 3D display/projector to a 3D video or 3D sync source.  In the case where the emitter was integrated into the 3D display/projector, the 3D display/projector was switched into 3D mode.  A high‐speed IR photosensor was directed at the IR emitter and analysed using a digital storage oscilloscope.  The timing of the IR pulses were measured relative to the 3D Sync signal, the light field emitted by the display, and/or the timing of the shuttering of the eyewear.

I now see why my Samsung & Panasonic glasses aren’t compatible.

3D Glasses Infrared Protocols.

Hardware 3d, glasses, whitepaper

It’s only 3 months until the next GTC2012 in San Jose, and the website is now online with registration details, an agenda, and much more.

GTC 2012 will feature hundreds of hours of technical sessions, tutorials, panels, and moderated roundtables, presented by senior programmers, researchers and thought leaders from across a broad range of fields. Explore the growing list of confirmed sessions on the sessions page.

Be sure to check out their “Convince your Manager Toolkit” as well, if you think you’ll need some help getting work to expense your trip.

via Agenda – NVIDIA.

Hardware, Science conference, gtc, nvidia

NVidia is off at SolidWorks World this week, demonstrating their newest NVidia Maximum products and Quadro GPU’s.  In particular, they’re proud of this demonstration of their new Quadro2000 against the older Quadro1700, showing the amazing performance boost you can get with a simple hardware upgrade.

Other demos include side-by-side comparisons of SolidWorks powered by NVIDIA Quadro professional GPUs to show how upgrading to the latest generation of Quadro provides up to 3X faster interactive performance and eDrawings in stereoscopic 3D with NVIDIA 3D Vision Pro. The video below demonstrates the performance benefits of the Quadro 2000.

via NVIDIA Demonstrates Maximum Performance at SolidWorks World « NVIDIA.

Graphics, Hardware nvidia, quadro, solidworks

SGI stocks plunged this morning based on the results of yesterday’s analyst meeting.

SGI, which is based in Fremont, Calif., lost $2.3 million, or 7 cents per share, in its fiscal second quarter, which spans October through December. If not for certain accounting items, the company said it would have earned 4 cents per share, Even on that basis, the results were far below the average earnings estimate of 25 cents per share among analysts polled by FactSet.

I’ve had a chance to glance over the transcript of the call, and it’s a bit odd.  Analysts are a bit peeved that after Barrenechea left they were assured they would maintain their financial guidance, and then again shortly thereafter.  Then they drop the bombshell of their failing European division, along with other “certain accounting items”.  Unfortunately, no one from SGI was really able (or willing?) to elaborate on what that meant.

With SGI currently under leadership of an interim CEO and now dropping 25% of their stock price, and planning for a reorganization of their European division and probably some product realignments, could SGI be about to change hands again?

via SGI shares plunge 23 pct as profit margins fall – CBS News.

Hardware sgi