This second post is going to focus on some of the tech I saw at the show. There were a few known vendors. Nvidia, Antec, ATI, Alienware, PNY, EVGA, Triton, Astro, and others. I have to say that Nvidia and ATI put on the best show. Nvidia showed off their Tegra devices, multi-screen gameplay, and new 3D technology…along with the multi-screen gameplay. ATI pretty much showed off their Eyefinity technology with MW2 playing on six screens. I’ll start with that since I have a video of how that works out.
As you can see six screens… Yeah, that was about it. I thought the idea was cool, but not really practical. For the price that you will pay for six monitors, you can get a screen that is the same size that the six screens cover. The plus of that scenario is that you don’t have to deal with the edges of the screens impeding your view. Which brings me to my next point. You probably noticed that I could not see my crosshair and the view was cut off at the monitor edges. Obviously this is a big draw back for playing shooters. I did get a chance to speak with a rep from ATI and he said that they are going to adjust the view to put the center of the screen lower so that problem doesn’t happen. This does not effect the gaps you miss because of monitor edges though. Personally I feel the six screens is to much. You can also do three screens. But if that’s the case you can do that with Nvidia cards as well…and have the option for 3D.
Nvidia displayed their three screen gameplay and also their 3D technology. For obvious reasons I don’t have video of that. While some say that 3D gaming is just a gimmick, I really enjoyed playing Bad Company 2 in 3D. It adds another element to the game. When I say 3D, I don’t mean things popping out at you. I mean that type of 3D Avatar was in IMAX. The 3D gives you depth perception, which if you have played Bad Company 2, can come in really handy. Pretty much you need a monitor that can render 3D properly. For now the only manufacture that makes 3D monitors that I know of is Samsung. The rendering is done at the Nvidia card. You don’t need to purchase any special card to render 3D. I found out that my 8800 GTX can do it if I wanted it to. The key is that whatever load a game puts on your card, it will double when you switch to 3D. So if you want to run Bad Company 2 at full graphics in 3D, you better get the best card you can. You also need the Nvidia glasses, which retail at about $200. Now I’m not saying I’m going to jump into 3D gaming. However, I do believe it can take off in the future. Especially if the glasses come down in price.
Nvidia also showed off the Tegra chipset in big ways. When you walk up to the booth you see a 46 inch TV playing a 1080p movie. What’s rendering the movie? A ZuneHD. ZUNEHD. All they had was a dock for the ZuneHD (that kinda looked like a iPod dock) plugged into HDMI port of the TV. That was it. Why is this amazing? It’s amazing because now there is a reason to actually purchase movies through the Zune marketplace. You can buy a digital movie, take it to the gym, on the train, on the plane, and when you get home just put it on the dock and watch it on your high def TV. In order to get your HD movies from iTunes to play on your TV you need to purchase an AppleTV, on top of the iPod you already have. I am strongly considering purchasing a Zune as my next MP3 player because of this.
The image at the top of the post is another Tegra device. If you notice the screen please note that the device is rendering UT3 at full graphics running at about 50fps. It was hooked up to a thin keyboard and small mouse for full functionality. UT3 only runs on Windows so naturally this means the device is running a full fledged OS and a game that is still running at 50fps. iPad what? Why would you pay $500 – $800 for a locked down device that is clearly inferior? Not only is the Tegra chipset more powerful, you have options. Please check the picture below (click the image for a larger version).
Each of those devices use the Tegra chipset and are from different vendors. So you will have different options with operating systems, different price points, and different features that you can choose from. From what I have seen you can run Windows, Linux, and Droid OS on these devices. What more do you want? I know there are going to be a lot of people that get iPad due to being fanboys(girls) and the great marketing that Apple does. But if you can resist the kool-aid, take the time and read up on Tegra. You won’t be disappointed.
The rest of the vendors really didn’t show anything that I thought was worth writing about. Antec showed a few new cases, Triton and Astro showed off their headphones. Triton also showed off some new glasses they are selling that reduce eye strain while playing on the PC. Alienware showed off some ridiculously expensive PCs (build your own folks). In the next part I will talk a bit about some of the other activities like the panels and LAN.
