Yesterday ATI announced its new line of GPUs, the X1K family. This family includes the flagship Radeon X1800 XT and XL GPUs (codenamed R520), the mid-range Radeon X1600 XT and Pro GPUs (code named RV530), and the mainstream Radeon X1300 and X1300 Pro GPUs (code named RV515). For a detailed overview, see the articles at ExtremeTech or Beyond3D. ATI has also announced preliminary plans to enable GPGPU development by publishing a detailed spec and a thin abstraction interface for programming the new GPUs.

Seismic Micro Technology presented GPU-based oil reservoir simulation in Madrid last month at the European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers Conference & Exhibition. The simulator was developed on dual NVIDIA GeForce GPUs using the Cg language. Grid block properties and transmissibilities are precomputed and stored in GPU textures. (“SMT thrashes Moore’s Law (July 2005)”, OilIT.com)

The latest versions of Cycling ’74s MAX/MSP/Jitter software packages provide a visual programming environment for new media with applications in GPU based stream processing, real-time video processing, volume visualization, and generic n-dimensional data analysis and signal processing. Jitter supports cascaded GLSL/Cg/ARB/NV shader programs with a streamlined render-to-texture interface, allowing fast prototyping of complex shader effects to be processed in a generic data flow network. (Jitter v1.5 Upgrade Info. Cycling ’74.)

Ne@tware Player 2005 is a shader player. It supports video over a model with real-time visual special effects using programmable HLSL shaders. Its multithreaded media engine supports media mixing, media codecs, and Shader Model 3.0. Developers can also design and test their own HLSL shaders and FX effects in Ne@tware Player 2005.

From a press release at www.BionicFX.com: “BionicFX announces a revolutionary technology for music production that turns NVIDIA video cards into audio effects processors. Audio Video Exchange (AVEX) converts digital audio into graphics data, and then performs effect calculations using the 3D architecture of the GPU. The latest video cards from NVIDIA are capable of more than 40 gigaflops of processing power compared to less than 6 gigaflops on Intel and AMD CPUs. AVEX represents a major technological achievement that allows music hobbyists and professional artists to run studio quality audio effects at high sample rates on their desktop computer. (Press Release: “Revolutionary Programming and Innovation uses GPU as Powerful Audio Effect Processor”)

3Dlabs Inc. has introduced its PCI Express-based Wildcat Realizm 800. A professional PCI Express-based graphics accelerator, the Wildcat Realizm 800 features a Wildcat Realizm Vertex/Scalability Unit (VSU) and dual Wildcat Realizm Visual Processing Units (VPU). The Wildcat Realizm 800 and the new AGP 8x-based Wildcat Realizm 100 and 200 deliver programmability via the OpenGL Shading Language and Microsoft DirectX 9.0 HLSL shader programs. The Wildcat Realizm 800 is slated for availability in the third calendar quarter of this year at a suggested retail price of $2799. (3Dlabs Wildcat Realizm Family)

NVIDIA Corporation recently introduced its new GeForce 6800 GPU (codename NV40). Among the new features of this GPU are 64-bit floating point texture filtering and blending and support for the D3D vertex and pixel shader 3.0 standard, enabling full dynamic branching and looping in programmable shaders. The GeForce 6800 features 16 pixel pipelines. The improved pixel shader performance of the GeForce 6800 architecture should provide excellent performance for GPGPU applications. NVIDIA report that they have seen over a 3x speedup on a GPU-based Navier-Stokes fluid flow simulation (compared to an NVIDIA GeForce FX 5950).

ATI Technologies recently introduced its new RADEON X800 line of graphics cards (codename R420). Among the new features of these cards are 3Dc, a new compression scheme for normal maps, and support for the D3D ps_2_b pixel shader specification. The ps_2_b shader model allows for pixel shaders up to 512 instructions long with 32 temporary registers. The RADEON X800 XT Platinum Edition features 16 pixel pipelines while the RADEON X800 PRO has 12 pixel pipelines. The improved pixel shader performance of the RADEON X800 architecture should provide excellent performance for GPGPU applications. ATI report they have seen up to a 2.5x speedup on an implementation of GPU-based fluid flow simulation (compared to an ATI RADEON 9800 XT).