The graphics card maker NVIDIA is showing off its new technology with a downloadable demo.
Ten years ago California-based GPU manufacturer NVIDIA came out with a tech demo, which it called Dawn, to showcase the capabilities of its technology. In honor of the occasion, and its latest upgrades, it has released a new video featuring the same cheerful winged mascot. It’s a new Dawn for NVIDIA – puntastic, I know – and for those who have access to the right hardware there’s also a demo for you to poke around on.
The tech uses tessellation and displacement mapping to get those shimmering effects. So far that’s been tricky to pull off, because of the amount of data that needed to be manipulated and the difficulty involved in doing so. NVIDIA believes it has cracked it. “With DirectX 11,” according to its website, “tessellation and displacement mapping finally come together in a happy union, and already, developers [are] jumping on board.” The new processes could result in more organic-seeming character models and detailed environments; exactly the sort of assets that the new Dawn shows off.
The video has been out for a short while, but this is the first time the demo has been available for download. The demo version will require the following tech specs:
GPU: GTX 670 or 680 (GTX 670 SLI, GTX 680 SLI, or GTX 690 recommended for Ultra mode)
CPU: 2.5GHz Dual-Core or higher
System Memory: 4GB
Disk Space: 2GB
Operating System: Windows 7 or Windows Vista
For more information, best have a look at the GeoForce website.
Source: Joystiq
