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This giant ogre is a character
from German Spellcraft Studios' "Yeah, The Movie". This
big guy is animated in real time, at a very smooth frame rate, as he dances around eating the little fellows who
cross his path. The entire model is detailed using
pixel and vertex shaders, and we have to say the screenshots
do not do this demo justice. The folks at Pixar have
nothing on this guy.
The next demo we saw was dubbed
"Time Machine". In this demo, a pristine vintage
pickup truck is aged, again through the use of pixel and
vertex shaders. As the demo runs, the paint on the
truck begins to oxidize, then it bubbles and rusts until the
truck looks like something you'd see in an episode of
Junkyard Wars. The great thing about this technology
is that once a specific shader is written it can be reused
in multiple projects, significantly decreasing the
developers' workload.
The most impressive demo had to
be of "Dawn", the completely computer generated "nymph"
(we've since decided that HH needs to generate one of these
for entertainment in the lab!).
The version of this demo that we saw was much further along
than the screenshots show. Dawn danced freely in a
forest, again at completely smooth frame rates with very
realistic movements. Her joints never exhibited the
stretching seen when using older texture maps, and her skin
was the most realistic we have even seen. The
programmers actually produced shaders for the oil, and blood
layers in her skin. The demo also allowed us to alter
her facial expressions in real-time. This is a demo
that has to be seen to be fully appreciated.
One last interesting tid-bit
about this new GPU,
that 3dfx fans that are still out there will appreciate, is a
statement Dan Vivoli, NVIDIA's Vice President of Marketing,
made in the "GeForce FX Story" video that was sent out to
the media. He stated that the name GeForce FX was
chosen for two reasons. First, was because they are
trying to create effects (FX) that are much closer to what
you'd see in cinema. Then he goes on to say, "This is
the very first product where the combined efforts of what
was 3dfx and is now NVIDIA came together to create this
product, and the combined "mojo" of 3dfx and NVIDIA are what
make the heart and soul of GeForce FX." It was very
cool to hear NVIDIA acknowledge 3dfx...and it's probably a
good marketing move as well.
After reading through this whole
preview, the burning questions remain, "When can we go out
an buy a GeForce FX? and How much will it cost?" Well,
we're expecting samples in late December, but cards won't be
available at retail, in quantity, until late January or
early February. Those of you hoping to get your hands
on a GeForce FX this holiday season, will unfortunately be
disappointed. Prices will be in-line with the
competition's high-end cards, somewhere between $350 and
$400 US. Actually, we just learned moments ago that a
couple of variants might be announced, upon general
availability of the product, a
standard board at $399 and an "ultra" possibly
priced around $499.
We're still trying to confirm this however. After digesting all of the information we
obtained from NVIDIA, and after finally seeing the card in
action, we feel the GeForce FX will be well worth the wait.
Initial indications from NVIDIA are that
the GeForce FX is
showing about a 40% performance advantage, over the Radeon
9700 Pro, in Doom 3. We're not sure what to expect
under other gaming conditions, but it's a good bet that the GeForce FX
will be a screamer, no matter what type of code you throw at
it. We'll know for sure once we do some formal testing, but
initial reports and our initial impressions are very good.
NVIDIA may be late with this product, but they definitely
aimed high and have a killer graphics card on the way.
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