|
|
Last Updated:
03
/
12
/
2004
Developer Newsletter: Issue #17
 |
DEVELOPER RESOURCES |
|
|
FX Composer Shader Authoring and Performance Tool Released
 FX Composer enables developers to create high performance DirectX 9.0 HLSL shaders in an IDE with unique real-time preview and optimization features. FX Composer was designed with the goal of making shader development and optimization easier for programmers while providing an intuitive GUI for artists customizing shaders for a particular scene. FX Composer comes with dozens of sample projects, performance tutorials, and more than 120 sample shaders.
 Back to top
|
|
 |
|
GPU Gems Sample Chapter Posted
 We've posted the preface, contributor biographies, and a sample chapter from the upcoming book GPU Gems: Programming Techniques, Tips, and Tricks for Real-Time Graphics, published by Addison-Wesley. GPU Gems is a compilation of articles covering practical real-time graphics techniques. It focuses on the programmable graphics pipeline available in today’s graphics processing units (GPUs) and highlights techniques needed by developers creating advanced visual effects.
Back to top
|
|
|
|
Cg 1.2 Released
The Cg Toolkit allows developers to write and run shader programs using a wide variety of hardware platforms and graphics APIs. This release introduces several significant new features:
- Interfaces, a language construct that facilitates the creation of general, reconfigurable Cg programs
- Unsized arrays
- Parameter instances may be created and shared between multiple programs
- Parameters may be marked as compile-time constants, leading to more efficient compiled code
- Support for x86 Linux (Red Hat 7.1 or later etc) and Mac OS X Panther
Back to top
|
|
|
|
Intel VTune Performance Analyzer 7.1 Special Offer
The NVIDIA Developer Technology group has been using the Intel® VTune(tm) Performance Analyzer for years to optimize the performance of our drivers to achieve the highest performance for applications from the leading game vendors in the market. Because VTune is such an indispensable tool for game developers, we are happy to announce a time-limited special promotional offer to our visitors: a 10% discount off of any purchase of new Intel Software Development Products [promotional code: NV033104; promotion valid only by ordering through this e-mail]. For more product information, please visit the Intel Software Development Products Website.
Back to top
|
|
|
NVMeshMender Updated
NVMeshMender is a tool designed to help condition meshes (by creating a proper tangent basis at each vertex) for per-pixel lighting. Our latest fixes include:
- Support for mirrored texture coordinates and cylindrical wrapping
- Improved class interface
Back to top
|
|
|
Normalization Heuristics Whitepaper Posted
This whitepaper and accompanying demo answer the question, “When is cube-map normalization faster than the normalize function?” It describes experiments performed with a non-trivial pixel shader, and uses the experimental results to derive useful rules of thumb regarding the performance and quality of normalization in pixel shaders. These heuristics provide tuning dials that developers can use to trade quality for performance (and vice versa) in 3D applications. To gain an intuitive understanding of these performance-quality tradeoffs, a demonstration application is provided to allow the same experiments described in this report.
Back to top
|
|
|
|
Become a Registered Developer Today
Joining our Registered Developer program is free and gives you access to a number of benefits:
- Developer Forums
- Prerelease Tools
- Prerelease Drivers
- Bug Reporting
- Board Store Access
Joining is easy! Simply fill out one of applications below:
Please note that it may take a few weeks to receive a decision on your application, due to the large number of applicants.
Back to top
|
|
|
|
GPGPU Feature: GPGPU Course at SIGGRAPH 2004
As GPUs become more flexible, a growing number of applications can benefit from their computational power. Each month, we will be highlighting one such project in our GPGPU feature. (GPGPU stands for General Purpose computation on GPUs. Learn more at http://www.gpgpu.org.)
This year ACM SIGGRAPH will feature a full-day course titled "GPGPU: General-Purpose Computing on Graphics Hardware." The course, organized by Mark Harris of NVIDIA and David Luebke of the University of Virginia, will feature GPGPU experts from industry and academia. The course will focus on computational building blocks and tools, perils, and tricks of the trade in general-purpose GPU programming. See http://www.gpgpu.org/s2004 for more details.
Back to top
|
|
|
EVENTS |
|
|
GDC 2004 Coming Soon
 GDC 2004 is a fantastic opportunity for developers to immerse themselves in the latest technologies and methodologies needed for creating awesome games.
NVIDIA Developer Technology engineers will be giving a number of presentations to help you make the most of the latest graphics hardware. Join us for blazing 32-bit fun with Vertex and Pixel Shaders 3.0 at GDC 2004! (Learn more about Vertex and Pixel Shaders 3.0 in the DirectX 9.0 SDK documentation, at Microsoft's DirectX day, and at the NVIDIA sponsored sessions.)
Back to top
|
|
|
PRODUCTS |
|
|
|
|
|
Take Advantage of Special Pricing for NVIDIA Quadro Products
PNY Technolgies and NVIDIA are teaming up to give you the power of NVIDIA Quadro at special pricing!
The NVIDIA Quadro FX series of professional solutions delivers the fastest application performance and the highest quality workstation graphics. NVIDIA Quadro FX takes the leading digital content creation (DCC) applications for game development to a new level of interactivity by enabling unprecedented capabilities in programmability and precision.
Go to http://www.pny.com/products/quadro/gamedev for more information on this incredible deal.
Back to top
|
|
|
|
Tip of the Month
Why would I care about developing games using stereoscopic viewing?
In the never ending quest for greater realism in games, there is one factor that is overlooked by most game developers. That is the fact that people see in the real world with two eyes. While (artificial) stereoscopic viewing, that is, on a screen verses in real life does not have a huge following, it never-the-less has a following. Many gamers enjoy the extra sense of presence obtained by playing games with inexpensive shutter glasses along with the stereo override driver from NVIDIA.
That aside, there is plenty of value in viewing your game in stereo during development in order to pick up on things that will look "fake" even when not viewing in stereo. Keep in mind that motion parallax gives similar visual cues to stereo, it's just that stereo viewer perceives instantaneously what user's see if they move around and obtain depth information via motion parallax.
Some old examples are trees with two vertical textures placed perpendicular. In stereo this effect does not sell. At least it would be better have a more varied approach which many developers are now implementing.
In a sense, using stereoscopic viewing while developing a game puts you ahead of the pack because you will see and correct these visual defects before they even come out in a game. This of course, will also enhance the experience of those who play your game in stereo.
For more stereo tips, check out our 3D Stereoscopic Development Guide. In addition, we'll have live stereo demos at GDC 2004 so that you can experience state-of-the-art stereo viewing first-hand.
Back to top
|
|
|
|
|
  |
We recently raised the bar for multimedia functionality and power consumption in the cell phone market with the introduction of the 
