The vast majority of visual effects you see in games today depend on the clever use of lighting and shadows -- without them, games would be dull and lifeless. In this fourth part of our deep look at 3D game rendering, we'll focus on what happens to a 3D world alongside processing vertices and applying textures. It once again involves a lot of math and a sound grasp of the fundamentals of optics.
The first 3D graphics cards appeared 25 years ago and since then their power and complexity have grown at a scale greater than any other microchip found in a PC. In going from one million to billions of transistors, smaller dies, and consuming more power, the capabilities of these behemoths is immeasurably greater, but what can we learn about efficiency?
Without properly managing heat, our electronic systems would destroy themselves or conversely, we'd be severely limiting our computing capabilities. This article will touch on the basic science of heat, how and why it is generated in electronics, and the various methods we have developed to control it.
#ThrowBackThursday We all think of the CPU as the "brains" of a computer, but what does that actually mean? What is going on inside with the billions of transistors to make your computer work? In this new four-part mini series we'll be focusing on computer hardware design, covering the ins and outs of what makes a computer work.
Video game physics are something that we often take for granted. Programming physics into a game can be as simple as one or two routines, or as complex as requiring a separate physics engine to handle the computations. In this article we'll delve into the specifics of rigid body and soft body physics in games.
Inside the latest graphics cards lies a large graphics processor, packed with billions of transistors, all running at clock speeds unthinkable a decade ago. Welcome to our architectural comparison of the newest GPUs from AMD and Nvidia.
In this third part of our deeper look at 3D game rendering, we'll be focusing what can happen to the 3D world after the vertex processing has done and the scene has been rasterized. The majority of the visual effects seen in games today are down to the clever use of textures -- without them, games would dull and lifeless. So let's get dive in and see how this all works!
In this second part of our deeper look at 3D game rendering, we'll be focusing what happens to the 3D world after all of the vertex processing has finished. We'll need to dust off our math textbooks again, grapple with the geometry of frustums, and ponder the puzzle of perspectives. We'll also take a quick dive into the physics of ray tracing, lighting and materials -- excellent!
In this first part of our deeper look at 3D game rendering, we'll be focusing entirely on the vertex stage of the process. This means dragging out our math textbooks, brushing up on a spot of linear algebra, matrices, and trigonometry -- oh yeah!
Despite continuous improvements, processors haven't had industry shifting advancements for a long time. Yes, transistors are smaller, chips have gotten faster, and performance has increased hundredfold, but we're starting to see diminishing returns... learn what 3D integration, FPGAs, and near memory computing are all about.
You're playing the latest Call of Mario: Deathduty Battleyard on your perfect gaming PC. You're looking at a beautiful 4K ultra widescreen monitor, admiring the scenery and detail. Ever wondered just how those graphics got there? Curious about what the game made your PC do to make them? Welcome to our 101 in 3D game rendering: a beginner's guide to how one basic frame of gaming goodness is made.
In this third installment we explore how the physics of how transistors work, how their individual components are built in silicon, and how they are connected to create useful circuits and chips. How do you transform a pile of sand into an advanced processor? Let's find out.
Now that we know how processors work at a high level, it's time to dig inside to understand how the internal components are designed. In part 2 we'll discuss transistors, logic gates, power and clock delivery, design synthesis, and verification.
#ThrowBackThursday Today we're addressing one of the most frequently asked questions we see about PC gaming: how many frames per second do you need? Should you be running at the same refresh rate as your monitor's, say 60 FPS on a 60 Hz display, or is there a benefit to running games at a much higher frame rate than your monitor can display, like say, 500 FPS?
Heat is an inevitable byproduct of work. Heat is also prevalent in electronics, and when it comes to graphics cards you can manage it using passive cooling, fans and even water. But when these solutions aren't working, your GPU has one more way to beat the heat: thermal throttling.
Best known as the immutable database that runs underneath cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum, blockchain is poised to play a critical role in every industry imaginable as businesses seek ways to cash in on the distributed ledger technology's promise of enabling a "trustless" consensus to validate transactions.
With 4K monitors becoming more and more affordable, it appears that the long-standing reign of 1080p may finally be coming to a close. The question is: can the human eye actually see the difference with a 4K monitor? To answer that question we will need to determine the pixel pitch of a monitor and compare it to what you are actually capable of seeing.
Microsoft is set to release Windows 10 on July 29th and users of current versions of the operating system will get an upgrade free of charge. So where's the confusion? Microsoft has sent mixed signals (more than once) and speculation has built on top of that about who gets the free upgrade and who doesn't, if Insiders get a free pass or not. Here's an overview of the different upgrade paths to Windows 10 that explains it all.
