There is a lot of hype lately in the graphics business. Therefore, it always helps to get an insider's opinion especially when they find themselves in the shoes of introducing a new product that they want to bring to market. To get at the core, we directed some questions pertaining to the industry in general and the new P10 VPU (Visual Processing Unit) as it indicates where next generation 3D rendering might take us. On another note we'd like to give a nice "thank you" to Kim Stowe for the help in this interview, with John Schimpf, 3D Lab's Director of Developer Relations. He tells us about the upcoming P10 VPU from 3D Labs, and where it fits in today's market how it is directed at us gamers.
AthlonXP.Com: How's everyone about the Creative acquisition these days? Was everyone in support of it for the most part?
JS: The acquisition is still in its early phases. 3Dlabs employees are very positive about the integration with Creative and the pace at which it's occurring. A big goal for Creative was to minimize the disruption of a fully functioning 3Dlabs operation. 3Dlabs is running at full steam marketing and selling Oxygen and Wildcat graphics products as well as bringing P10 products to market. The 3Dlabs operation is benefiting from the enhanced financial and business resources Creative is providing.
AthlonXP.Com: The P10 was hinted towards gamers. Was development aimed at rendering speed, or more towards features? ie, how's it gonna run Doom3 based on what we know ;)
JS: It is true the 3Dlabs is excited about features and performance of the P10 architecture that can be used to create an exciting gaming experience. At this time, the plans for introducing a game-oriented implementation of the architecture are being driven by Creative. I don't have more information to give you at this time.
AthlonXP.Com: 3DLab's focus seemed to be on professional graphics development, but the fact that realtime rendering capability increases with new technology, was the push toward gamers based on passion or more towards applying the technology to broader markets?
JS: You are correct that 3Dlabs will maintain a focus on the needs of graphics professionals. Throughout the history of the 3D graphics market, the major innovations have migrated from the higher end down to the consumer. Accordingly, the highly programmable nature of the P10 is an example of the kind of innovation that can deliver compelling products to broader classes of users.
AthlonXP.Com: Has 3D Labs ever wondered about voxelspace technology since the brief flurry of development interest, if not wondering on development potential, has there ever been an interest in any 3D rendering schemes other than triangles?
JS: We are primarily interested in providing technology that allows developers to have access to the development paradigms they understand and intend to incorporate into their products. That being said, we think the programmability of the P10 architecture will allow developers to experiment with and potentially incorporate different rendering approaches. For example, using NURBS to represent complex surfaces is very straight forward on P10.
AthlonXP.Com: What company best describes the "anti 3DLabs" if you would, in that they are your biggest competitor based on the markets you are dug in?
JS: To begin with, there are only 2 or 3 other players in the markets in which we are present. We consider all of them to fall into the category of "anti-3Dlabs," primarily because they are trying to use gaming technology to address the needs of the professional user. One of those players frequently hears criticisms over their driver quality. That is not acceptable from our perspective - professional users require driver reliability. Another of those players is often critiqued about their image quality - sacrificing precision for high frame rates. That may be acceptable for game players, but professional users simply cannot afford low precision images. 3Dlabs starts from the perspective of the professional graphics user and delivers those qualities in all our products.
AthlonXP.Com: What are your thoughts on how the 3dfx ingestion affects 3DLab's business in any way?
JS: It's still too early to say. There are indications that 3Dfx engineers were involved with the development of NV30. That part is still unannounced. It doesn't appear that any 3Dfx-only designed parts will be coming to market. So nvidia appears to have acquired some engineers - and possibly some new concepts - to help expand their engineering team.
AthlonXP.Com: These days, do you think it is becoming any more difficult to develop 3D rendering techniques for new features considering ATI and nVidia are trying to patent as many shader algorithms as possible? ieL2.0 development?
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JS: It's not so much a question of whether or not it's difficult. In fact, there's little that either ATI or nVidia is doing in their shaders that has not been done before. The difference is that it seems they are looking to use the patent process to create barriers for other companies. This is especially problematic when they attempt to include graphics chip-specific shading algorithms in industry-standard graphics APIs. The good news is that 3Dlabs is taking a very different approach in the development of L 2.0. First, we're developing the API at a sufficiently high level that it doesn't necessitate the inclusion of patents. Patents are typically an issue when designing low-level chip interfaces. Second, we're not incorporating anything that would require the infringement of a patent. And we're getting a very good reception from theL community both from our technical approaches as well as our lawyer-free position.
AthlonXP.Com: Can you give me an estimate on how much longer it will take to have complete photorealism in realtime rendering?
JS: Realistically, it's still a few years away. But we are getting closer and doing so at a pretty amazing pace. Keep in mind that it's not just a hardware problem, it's also an API problem. So APIs likeL 2.0 and DirectX 9 or 10 need to keep moving as well. The good news is that the major graphics hardware companies are also working on the APIs, so there will be convergence is a reasonable time frame.
AthlonXP.Com: Do you see multi-chip solutions at a disadvantage to single-chip solutions or vice versa? why?
JS: There are two aspects to the answer to this question. First, the industry is moving past graphics boards with multiple graphics chips handling different rendering tasks. Chip process technology is such that keeping all of the rendering stages on a single chip is not particularly difficult. However, achieving scalability through multiple discreet graphics chips running in tandem is important. The P10 architecture is a scalable one. And our drivers hide the details of that architecture from software developers, so any code they write will automatically take advantage of the underlying processing power. Some applications (and budgets) are satisfied by a single graphics chip, some - particularly in our core professional space - require more processing power. We will deliver products that provide the graphics processing power our users need.
AthlonXP.Com: What games are most commonly played around the offices?
JS: Warcraft III Beta, Jedi Knight II, Soldier of Fortune II, Grand Theft Auto III
Thank you John!
We can safely assume that 3D Labs is not going to claim the best performance in gaming applications. What we might be able to derive, however, is that they are aiming at high quality renderings much like Matrox' route with the Parhelia. The truth is in the benchmarks and this is only speculation.
As far as features are concerned, it could be very likely that the P10 may boast the most well equipped feature set so far. Hardware accelerated NURBS support is very rarely seen coming to a consumer end product, in fact on a consumer end product it has yet to be supported in hardware. The only application NURBS has right now is that it can be used in a static application; meaning character animation in a game might not do well with NURBS yet a level creating application with NURBS might be very powerful. Other features include the virtual textures, which is nice for intense pre-rendering but the real-time application is actually slower than we had hoped.
With 3D Labs heading upL 2.0, John also clarified that they want to create a very non-proprietary standard. For a chipmaker to make a goal of developing a non-proprietary standard is rare indeed. For 3D Labs such a design goal is actually beneficial to their market, which wants to have a primarilyplatform to develop on.
In short, don't expect the P10 to be the best performing Doom3 solution. They make mention of being excited, and it may very well deliver some compelling performance. Note that it is not their design goal, and that their design goal is for the professional graphics modeler. 3D Labs has had a history of making some very decent performing 3D accelerators, namely the Permedia2 in its influence. It seems that the P10 will likely be bucking heads more with the Parhelia than it will a future ATI or nVidia solution, made for professionals who like to play every now and then. I am also aware that in this market it may be able to come out in the lead. It would be wise to keep an eye on 3D Labs and Creative, with such an alliance for resources, it would not be hard to see the P10 making its splash on the scene.
Interview conducted by Ivan "DFo3D" Jacobson
