1 Billion transistors on a graphics card in under 3 years! True to life games in under 10 years!

This is really something, those cards must have unbeliveable processing power.

The chips required to handle such work would need billions of transistors. Nvidia sees its graphics processing units (GPU) crossing the 1 billion transistor mark around 2008, from just 302 million transistors in its latest GeForce 7 series GPUs, he said. By comparison, the company's first offering in 1993, the NV1, carried only 1 million transistors.

And we will break the 5 billion transitor barrier by 2013? Wow, just WOW!

The number of transistors on an Nvidia GPU could grow to 5.4 billion by 2013, he said, but the chip industry needs to work on reducing the amount of power a chip needs in order to put that many transistors on one piece of silicon.

Gaming around say 2015 would be something unimaginable by today's standers, almost indistinguishable from real life... That would be truly amazing, advancing from 8 bit gaming to photorealistic in under 40 years!

My bad, I knew I forgot to put the source.

www.macworld.co.uk...

[edit on 4-11-2005 by beyondSciFi]

beyondSciFi,
how about a link please?

I add the link, sorry. Also I was thinking, to truly make this happen (realistic games) physics cards would be a must, seeing how CPU (even duel or quad core) are too weak to do the necessary calculates. I really hope Ageias PPUs do well and are used to aid in the making of newer games. Linky to main site: www.ageia.com...

[edit on 4-11-2005 by beyondSciFi]

Originally posted by beyondSciFi
I add the link, sorry. Also I was thinking, to truly make this happen (realistic games) physics cards would be a must

Two words, MultiCore CPU. Okay One word and an acronym

Dang and I thought my XBOX with Halo2 was de bomb!
What would that be, Halo10? The Master Chief in real
life, almost. Awesome!

[edit on 4-11-2005 by Yorga]

Id Software's Doom 3 already took a large step into the photo-realistic realm, it will definitly not be long until true photo-realistic 3D graphics will appear.

Advancements in technology like dynamic lightning, Bump Mapping and what have you really add much to realism.

Originally posted by sardion2000

Originally posted by beyondSciFi
I add the link, sorry. Also I was thinking, to truly make this happen (realistic games) physics cards would be a must

Two words, MultiCore CPU. Okay One word and an acronym

Multi core CPUs are not powerful enough to do the calculations needed for the advanced physics of future games. This is why physics cards are coming out very soon.

Ageia's PPU is an important step in the right direction as it can take the current limit of 30-40 bodies of today's high-end CPUs to a maximum of 40,000.

Source: www.gdhardware.com...

So as you can see, current CPUs are not a even a match for PPUs.

[edit on 4-11-2005 by beyondSciFi]

So as you can see, current CPUs are not a even a match for PPUs.

A PPU has many floating point math pipelines, with fewer stages so it can do much more work with less lag, but this comes at the expense of programability.

A CPU can do virtually any computing task, but that comes at the expense of a single pipeline with many stages.

It really is an apples to oranges comparison.

I suspect the Physics Processing Units will be integrated into video chips in a short time because without a consumer base software creators will not support hardware, and few people will go out and by an add on card that does nothing but make a few games run faster.

The same as with hardware rendering, when basic features are integrated into entry level cards everyone in the software industry will support it.

[edit on 4-11-2005 by ArchAngel]

I wasnt directly comparing CPUs and PPUs, just their physics processing power, so a the task at hand PPUs are better. Yes they are less programable but for what they need to do, its enough. Just as GPUs and APUs (soundcards) are designed specificly for their tasks. CPUs have to do a wide range of things, thats why they are much more programable but each task suffers performance wise. So lets say you are a hardcore games, would you rather spend 800 bucks on a great CPU or 400 bucks for an average CPU plus 200 bucks for a PPU which would help in games much more then the difference between those two CPUs processing power?

The intergration of PPUs into the average home pc will be slow, just as it was for the GPU. If they could be made in large quantites and for a cheaper price say 100 bucks, then maybe in about a couple of years, PPUs will be standard.

[edit on 4-11-2005 by beyondSciFi]

Is it just me, or am I flabbergasted by where we are at, RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW?!?!

Yeah it's getting pretty good but I've gotten over the factor a long long time ago, like when PS1 came out . It's called Jaded Gamer Syndrome and is only treatable by new gameplay.

[edit on 4-11-2005 by sardion2000]

Dont worry, the week after the 1 billion mark is reached, 1.2 billion will be released !

It will never change !

it will some day when find find the 100% best way for graphics.

right now possibilities are endless but in many many years are questions will get smaller and smaller until there is nothing else to invent.

More than transistor what we need is a new kind of memory. Todays memory is a bottleneck it cannot keep up with either CPU's or GPU's.

Also we need a new programming languaje. Programming has been using the same tools for about 30 years. These old tools also stop us from harnessing all the power of hardware due to iots failure to implement real parallel processing among other functions.

I hope in 10 yeras we get more than Raw power. I expect a new generation of computer systems, based on new principles and not just an evolution. That means not a Pentium 10... at 500 Ghz's but something more meaningful...

I think Ageia will catch on faster then what people think,unreal engine 3 already supports it and ALOT of game companies are using unreal engine 3 . ATI is already looking at adding it to there cards aswell

Originally posted by beyondSciFi
I add the link, sorry. Also I was thinking, to truly make this happen (realistic games) physics cards would be a must, seeing how CPU (even duel or quad core) are too weak to do the necessary calculates. I really hope Ageias PPUs do well and are used to aid in the making of newer games. Linky to main site: www.ageia.com...

[edit on 4-11-2005 by beyondSciFi]

I disagree with you here. With modern pc gaming most of the work is done by the video card. Your CPU isn't really doing much else besides crunching the numbers fo physics and other misc. tasks.

With multicore processors starting to hit the consumer level market i think we're going to see games taking advantage, so along with better and better graphics we're going to get a more realistic experience (unless the game is trying to not be realistic - which is always fun too heh), and more and more accurate physics.

An example to help my case - Far Cry. There's a version for the AMD64 processors that adds quite a bit more detail to the overall game without additional slowdown. GRanted there aren't many more games that are optimised for the AMD64 just yet, but it's totally possible. (which is why i think we'll eventually see games optimised for multicore cpus and not so much for and additional/different sort of co-processor).

[edit on 4-11-2005 by negativenihil]

With modern pc gaming most of the work is done by the video card. Your CPU isn't really doing much else besides crunching the numbers fo physics and other misc. tasks.

A CPU and a PPU are totally different designs.

One cannot do the job of the other.

www.ageia.com...

Read through this and you may understand better.

well as long as it runs MAME emulator ill be OK

I just dont know where theyll find all the people it will take to put the polygons in place for one game, paint them and animate them. I mean working on a 3000 poly models was fun, but 5 million poly model is a pain in the back. We need better tools for these monsters.

According to Moore's law this will mean far more than 5 billion by 2013.

Originally posted by Frosty
According to Moore's law this will mean far more than 5 billion by 2013.

I've read somewhere that Graphics technology is progressing somewhat faster then Moores law.