Brought to you with the collaboration of the industry's leading graphics hardware vendors, this day-long tutorial provides an in-depth look at the latest technologies in OpenGL, and how they can be applied to next generation game graphics.
On Wednesday, March 9 [Room 2016]:
Next-Gen Special Effects Showcase and SLI Optimization [9:00 am – 10:00 am]
Randy Fernando, Simon Green, and Matthias Wloka (NVIDIA Corporation)
In this talk, NVIDIA Developer Technology engineers will present practical special effects developed for the latest graphics hardware. These are the effects you’ll need to keep your game competitive in 2005 as the graphics envelope continues to expand. Each technique will be described in detail and demonstrated, in addition to being discussed in the context of integration with game engines. Finally, the talk will teach attendees all about SLI, covering performance characteristics and optimization methodology.
Takeaway: Attendees will see a variety of must-have stunning new effects and techniques that they can integrate efficiently into their projects.
Coming to a Pixel Near You: Mobile 3D Graphics on the NVIDIA GoForce WMP [12:00 pm – 1:00 pm]
Brian Bruning and Chris Wynn (NVIDIA Corporation)
NVIDIA's GoForce line of Wireless Media Processors (WMPs) are powering the current and next generation of mobile phones, PDAs, and handheld game consoles. This session will cover the features, technologies and performance you can expect from consumer handheld devices in 2005 and beyond. Targeted at PC and console developers eyeing the emerging handheld market, advanced topics include NVIDIA's OpenGL ES multitexturing extension, performance tuning for fixed-point processing, and programming techniques for cross-platform development.
Takeaway: Attendees will learn about the latest GoForce WMPs and gain a broad understanding of the burgeoning consumer handheld device landscape.
The NVIDIA Performance Analysis Tools [2:30 pm - 3:30 pm]
Sim Dietrich, Sebastien Dominé, and Raul Aguaviva (NVIDIA Corporation)
Leveraging our intimate knowledge of the GPU and driver, NVIDIA has produced a suite of performance analysis and optimization tools that expose critical performance metrics. In this talk, you’ll learn about performance analysis methodology and see how to apply it using the latest performance analysis tools from NVIDIA, including NVPerfHUD, FX Composer, and more.
Takeaway: Attendees will learn the theory behind performance tuning and see how to use NVIDIA’s performance analysis tools effectively to improve performance.
Shader Workflow with FX Composer [4:00 pm – 5:00 pm]
Christopher Maughan and Kevin Bjorke (NVIDIA Corporation)
High-level shader programming languages are helping developers create more stunning and complicated effects. This talk covers several methods of optimizing your production pipeline using simple plug-ins to import/export custom file formats & per-instance attributes, semantics & annotations to customize the UI for artists, and automation scripts to make your life easier, and more.
Takeaway: Attendees will learn how to incorporate high-performance shader authoring techniques into their production pipelines.
GPU Gems 2 Showcase [5:15 pm – 6:15 pm]
Arul Asirvatham (Microsoft Research)
Michael Bunnell and Matthias Wloka (NVIDIA Corporation)
This talk covers selected chapters from GPU Gems 2: Programming Techniques for High-Performance Graphics and General-Purpose Computation. The authors of the chapters will share their insight and present several practical, innovative techniques that can be adopted by game engines to increase realism.
Takeaway: Attendees will learn about several relatively simple but useful effects from GPU Gems 2: Programming Techniques for High-Performance Graphics and General-Purpose Computation that they can incorporate and extend in their own projects.
Below are the names, speakers, descriptions, and takeaways for the sessions we'll be participating in at GDC 2005. Feel free to 
