cM :: MORLEY|DIGITAL

Fair warning – I’m going to ramble through a few topics here, so please bear with me.

PhysX is the Lazarus of the PC industry after Aegia was acquired by NVIDIA last year.  However, the usefulness of a dedicated piece of hardware to accelerate physics has been debated more and more since its introduction in mid-2006, particularly in light of rival software -solution Havok’s successful install base and support amongst developers.  Demonstrations I saw at Quakecon 2005 showed an impressive array of hundreds of boxes colliding and splintering or water “realistically” flowing down uneven terrain.  Cool, but not worth $250.  So NVIDIA is ditching the dedicated hardware solution and is apply the awesome brute strength of their GPUs, along with CUDA, to enable PhysX processing on the GPU.  However, the fact that recently released NVIDIA demos basically demonstrated the same old water effect accelerated by CUDA-driven PhysX technology gives me pause, especially after seeing little real-world application of PhysX that truly impacts game play, not just accelerate physics “effects.”

It all started when I stumbled upon a very interesting blog post from an HP/Voodoo engineer on their NextBench community forum.  It was interesting in a couple of ways.  The first thing that jumped out at me was the fact that the engineer solely ran tests using FutureMark’s Vantage PC benchmarking software.  One of the tests in the benchmarking suite includes dedicated tests to measure the physics processing capabilities of a PC.  It’s similar to the CPU test in 3D Mark 06 where 3D acceleration was taken out of the picture and software rendering was used to render a 3D scene.  Of course it ran in the 1-4 frames per second range, but then again it wasn’t intended to demonstrate a real world scenario, just remove all other variables from the test as much as possible.  The same goes with the physics test in Vantage.  However, NVIDIA has released drivers that enable the GPU to process physics calculations instead of the CPU which show a remarkable increase in performance on that test.  On July 21^st of this year, FutureMark began to remove GPU PhysX scores from its Hall of Fame, citing that its physics test was meant solely to test the processing power of the CPU and clearly stated that a GPU or a driver could not affect the score.  Now if you want to submit to FutureMark’s Hall of Fame, you must submit with a WHQL driver and not install NVIDIA’s PhysX acceleration software.  I would presume that if PhysX-enabled games were more widespread that FutureMark would have a tougher time convincing the general public that NVIDIA’s use of their GPUs to accelerate PhysX was some sort of cheating, or even violation of the “spirit” of the rules.  Because the fact of the matter is that a GPU’s stream processors are going to be busy banging out wicked 3D graphics and there definitely needs to be more study on how that affects its ability to accelerate PhysX in the real world.  Perhaps this generation’s hardware is powerful enough, perhaps not.  But that just goes back to the type of people that would be interested in shelling out about $1000 in NVIDIA products (which NVIDIA would love-more on that later) just to get physics accelerated effects.  I say effects because to date there has been no significant title that has a compelling reason to add PhysX hardware at additional cost to the user to enable a better gaming experience.  NVIDIA adding PhysX support to GPUs that people are already buying or already have is a good play because there’s a very large install base of 8 and 9-series NVIDIA GPUs-at least when it comes to the mainstream.  This is a good and bold strategy.  But developers aren’t developing games for the 5% enthusiast space that is even interested in GPU enabled PhysX, much less those who can afford it where it seems to be most effective: high-end (read: expensive) multi-GPU solutions.  Developers want to reach the broadest audience possible.  And that’s the key, because according our friendly HP/Voodoo engineer; the widely popular and mainstream 8600GTS was a sore replacement for a CPU when it came to accelerating PhysX in FutureMark’s Vantage.  Perhaps if the 8600GTS were a secondary GPU in the system would it make sense.  But that again goes back to the argument for or against buying dedicated hardware for physics processing, which is what Aegia started out doing. 

I didn’t make it pasts the graphs in the engineer’s post showing the performance deltas before stopping to think about how I would write this article.  Going back to it, I realized I failed to read the last paragraph, which really put the whole thing in perspective for me, which brings me to the other thing I found interesting in the post.
I realized the whole affair was a condensed course of logic to get to get to the conclusion NVIDIA has come to and spent a considerable amount of effort in marketing and PR: that the GPU is slowly making the CPU irrelevant and will possibly replace it in some way someday.  It’s the whole “balanced computing” campaign in a nutshell.  The bottom line is that NVIDIA wants you to spend more money on their products than on a CPU.  That explained why in that blog post the synthetic nature of Vantage vs. the rest of the real world was topically glossed over, and no reference was made to the fact that the Vantage scores were basically irrelevant today in at least FutureMark’s eyes. 

Of course, none of this necessarily invalidates NVIDIA’s points on a balanced computing experience.  There are many compelling reasons today to pay attention to your GPU budget just as closely as your CPU budget: we truly are in the Age of Visual Computing.  I believe that the premise is a good one, and something that some of us in the industry do every day – deliver the performance that a customer wants that is tailored their needs.  And if that means making sure they spend more on a GPU, or more on a CPU, that’s what we try to deliver.

Not to get off on a tangent, but to hopefully wrap up this post, I wish that NVIDIA would spend their PR budget in regards to their balanced PC campaign in the retail space.  It’s always been disheartening to see how specifications are spun to an unsuspecting public and how the big box boys are dictating to the PC manufacturers what should or shouldn’t be included in a BOM.  Honestly, I think NVIDIA could do the mainstream a great service by focusing on retail buyers.   And they don’t even have to talk about PhysX to make a compelling story when PCs are being sold with 6GB of RAM and integrated graphics!  Yeah, that’s the ticket.  Leave the 900 pound gorilla – Intel – alone, and go after those pesky memory manufacturers!

Specialty media server company among licensed Microsoft Partners to deploy Media Center TV Pack 2008

The Woodlands Texas-August 13, 2008– Microsoft OEM Gold Partner and authorized digital-cable media server OEM Fluid Digital is proud to announce the integration of Microsoft’s Media Center TV Pack to enable an enhanced TV viewing experience.

“We’re excited about delivering even more value to our customers with native support for four digital cable tuners, an enhanced electronic program guide, and the ability to share non-protected digital cable content across PlayReady-enabled PCs and portable media devices,” says Chris Morley, Executive Vice President, Fluid Digital.

Fluid Digital Media Servers will begin shipping with the Media Center TV pack in Q4 of 2008. In addition to four digital cable tuner support, Fluid Digital will be able to integrate additional Clear QAM tuners in a heterogeneous manner, with the ability to remap channels to various tuners within the system.

“In my 32 years of designing and integrating home theater solutions, I have never experienced a technology progress so far and at such a rapid pace,” said Kevin Buchanan, President of Fluid Digital. “What Microsoft has been able to accomplish in the living room has been awe inspiring and we are pleased to be a part of the story.”

Fluid Digital Media Servers are sold through a vetted dealer network and are professionally installed to ensure years of hassle-free TV and media enjoyment. Fluid Digital Media Servers are a perfect combination of technology, art, and experience in the audio visual industry.

About Fluid Digital

Fluid Digital is among a handful of Microsoft Partners authorized to integrate Windows Vista with Digital Cable support. Fluid Digital was the first to market with AMD’s 780G chipset integrated in a digital cable media server. Fluid Digital is the only media server company in the business that is wholly owned by a custom A/V hybrid (retailer/installer) that enables them to have the fastest response time in the industry.

Contact:
For dealer inquiries, please contact Kevin Buchanan at 281-298-8778. For technical and capabilities inquiries on Fluid Digital media servers, please contact Chris Morley at 512-535-2659. Please visit our website at www.fluiddigitalmedia.com.

For more information on this press release and Microsoft’s TV Pack, please check out CEPro.

You know the old saying, “Half of life is just showing up”?  I think it’s also followed by “The other half is showing up on time.”  While both are true, the former is what benefited MAINGEAR @ Quakecon 2008 this year.  We had a prominent position at AMD’s booth, and while the competition sent machines, no one bothered to send people. 

So we got to do a lot of mingling with AMD fans and gaming enthusiasts, and were really able to bring our message of performance, reliability, and customer service to the old and young alike.  Wallace and I were AMD’s “Ask the experts” panel and we had a lot of fun talking about AMD technology, being a boutique PC builder, and I even got to talk about some of my favorite subjects like bloatware, crappy chassis, and other stuff.

But two things just blew me away.  Getting to go up on the main stage and give away a MAINGEAR PC in front of a huge crowd of people was just awesome.  Everyone was so excited to be there and the kid who won our F131 was shaking as he filled out some paperwork.  We put a brand new system in the last of the first F131 chassis we ever used.  We painted it red for AMD/ATI, and it was kinda emotional for some of us as we were really giving a part of our history.

You can see me talking about it here.

The other great experience was being involved in a documentary about gamers and the gaming industry.  Wallace, Wendel, and I were all interviewed both one on one, and at our booth about what it’s like to be in the gaming business and actually make money at it, compete with the Tier 1s, what a boutique PC builder really is, and a whole bunch of other stuff.  It was produced by a Tonight Show producer and I have no idea where it’s going to air or when, but the last one they did ended up on MTV.  So we’ll see.

Which is why it’s with a heavy heart that I must tell you that I’ll be transitioning away from MAINGEAR shortly.  MAINGEAR has been a labor of love for me over the past year and was never about the money.  Wallace and crew really restored my faith in this business and I couldn’t be more proud of the work we have done and what we have accomplished.  They are truly a force for good in this business. 

But I’ve been offered such an incredible opportunity that every day this week I have pinched myself to make sure it’s not just a dream.  The possibilities are endless and I couldn’t be more excited.  I can’t talk much more about it, and I really wanted this post to be about my love and respect for MAINGEAR, so I’ll save it for another day.

I’d say that my love affair with Microsoft’s Media Center started with a BANG last year when I was the first to launch digital cable tuners in Windows Vista.  And while I moved a lot of boxes for that company, I had no idea just how expansive the whole home theater ecosystem was and what it was like to actually integrate this technology into a real-world environment.  I learned very quickly that PC companies just don’t get it.  Their systems are built in a vacuum and treated like a PC.  The PC world shoves technology down the A/V industry’s throat so fast it almost turns most A/V dealers off of anything PC related. 

But not so at Fluid Digital.  I spent months not just focused on the hardware or the software, but the actual usability and real world experience that high end customers demand.  It’s one thing to sell this hardware to tweaks and geeks who have been waiting for it and are techno-savvy enough to deal with issues, but quite another to sell the product to someone who has never even heard of Media Center before.  And once you inject yourself into someone’s TV watching experience, you better be damn sure that your system is going to be more reliable than their cable box.  Because people can stand a blue screen or two with their computer, but interrupt American Idol and there will be blood.  I also took this philosophical approach when I designed MAINGEAR’s Axess HD.

So, here are some pictures of the last high end install done by a Fluid Digital dealer, Home Entertainment, Inc.  And yes, that’s Media Center being controlled wirelessly by a PSP.  You can watch and control 100% of your Fluid Digital media server any where around the world, including high definition premium cable channels, for less than $750 retail.

BTW, that new project I mentioned I was working on?  It should be announced at NVISION at the end of the month.