AMAZING REALTIME RAYTRACING BOARD check it out...

[splitpoint]

Can you even buy that card currently?

I'd be interested in seeing some real numbers as to just how fast it is. I just upgraded to and 8-core system so I'd be interested to see how it would compare.

[juanxer]

I don't know: the mark of that being successful would be getting some well-known 3D vendor to publicly support it. AutoDesk, Luxology... erm... Maxon (Juanxer dives behind a rock ;) )... There have been other hardware RT accelerators + APIs before. nVidia's Gelato seemed to be the most accesible tech for vendors to build upon, but it doesn't seem to have gone anywhere.

If it happened to be dirt-cheap... but the problem is that it could be fast now but real soon get overtaken by other technologies and dropped off: by better multiprocessing, GPU-accelerated RT, Intel's Larrabee (whenever it arrives to market), etc.

This kind of thing would be far more credible as a commercial product if it came with some practical turn-key end-user feature, that is, already providing acceleration for some 3D package. Right now it is a developer toy.


(The funny thing is that this product could support OpenCL eventually: OpenCL intends to take advantage of not only GPUs but any kind of general purpose or specialist hardware)

[Vizfizz]

I doubt it works with EI. Most likely its somehow tied into Max and that's an image from Paul's time working with Brazil...or was it V-ray... I can't remember.

[futagoza]

That´s funny they are claiming that CausticGL is an industry standard. I strongly doubt that unless the industry will adopt it....We have seen similar technologies in the past which weren´t successful either for the mass market. Does anybody remember those YARC boards when the first PowerPC´s from Apple hit the market?

I agree also with Juanxer. I see it currently also only as toy for dev´s. For me the industry standard will be by 2010 OpenCL and CUDA, which most important imo will add no additional costs for the end user and can easily adopted by programmers.

Maybe with OpenCL Apple shoot also in his own food, because now no one needs to buy a better CPU, instead one might only replace his graphics card in the future...;-)

Regards
Stefan

[juanxer]

It depends: CoreImage and CoreVideo use the CPU rather than a GPU for some tasks. Sometimes a GPU is not optimal, because of it being a low-end one, data going in and out of the GPU card impacting speed, etc.

[ediris]

This sounds confusing , Core Video uses CPU but it depends on the graphic card that supports best Quartz Extreme.So can they just modify the quicktime code depending on Apple businesses?

[juanxer]

Actually, the "Cores" do something like a "just in time compilation" that varies depending on the hardware resources available. For example, sometimes going through Altivec was faster than "exiting" the mainboard, going to the GPU and coming back.

[PaulS2]

http://www.caustic.com/index.php


will it or can it work with EI? Also, I saw a Paul Sherstiboff render on their page.
If this works im buying!!!

I have a feeling that Splutterfish, makers of Brazil, are involved in this:-)......I think this is very exciting! Nice to see the future of 3D starting to occur.

[monday1313]

I have a feeling that Splutterfish, makers of Brazil, are involved in this:-)......I think this is very exciting! Nice to see the future of 3D starting to occur.

Yeah, I want instant artistic gratification! I want to be able to work in Zbrush with realtime caustics rendering. That would be sweet....animate chrome liquid people melting into other things in realtime in EIAS...make a hyperreal mountain range or build worlds in Vue...

someday.... :banghead:

[PaulS2]

................this product is very, very exciting!! VERY!

[manuel]

Oooh, Paul knows something and he's not telling.

Is Brazil currently being rewritten to take advantage of this hardware? I was thinking things have been awfully quiet around Brazil for a while now

[futagoza]

here´s more discussions about this card:

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=59&t=739494

Regards
Stefan

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