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An updated version of NVIDIA Direct3D SDK 10 has been released. It includes a new sample: the Stencil Routed K-Buffer. Check out the Direct3D samples page to get the whitepaper and code for the new sample, or download the updated SDK here.


Dec 6, 2007 | Direct link

The August 2007 release of Cg 1.5 focuses on performance improvements, particularly for CgFX.

Download it on the Cg Toolkit page


Aug 23, 2007 | Direct link


The sample shows how to simulate and animate different kinds of lighting effects using DirectX10 features. The structure of a lightning beam is created by using fractal subdivision of line segments, efficiently implemented using geometry shaders and stream out. A geometry shader is then used to create camera facing billboards with a procedurally created color gradient. The atmospheric glow effect is implemented by downsampling and blurring the rendered bolts of lighting using a Gaussian filter kernel with separate extinction coefficients per color channel in order to fake atmospheric scattering.

Lightning Sample
SDK 10
Tools Page


Jul 17, 2007 | Direct link

Our GDC 2007 presentations are available for download:

NVIDIA FX Composer 2: A Comprehensive Shader Development Package
[download] Slides (PDF)

GPU Optimization with the Latest NVIDIA Performance Tools

[download] Slides (PDF)

GeForce 8800 OpenGL Extensions
[download] Slides (PPT)

NVIDIA Demo Team Secrets – Cascades
[download] Slides (.zip + movies)

NVIDIA Demo Team Secrets – Advanced Skin Rendering
[download] Slides (PDF)

Real-time volumetric smoke using D3D10
[download] Slides (PDF)

Soft shadows using hierarchical min-max shadow maps
[download] Slides (PDF)

How to make use of Direct3D10 now
[download] Slides (PDF)

GDC 2007 Page


Mar 22, 2007 | Direct link

We are pleased to demonstrate the latest version of our NVIDIA Developer Toolkit at GDC 2007, complete with six all-new software products for developers:

  • FX Composer 2. Featuring DirectX and OpenGL support via HLSL, Cg, and COLLADA FX, as well as powerful pipeline integration features for real production environments.
  • Shader Library. The world's largest shader library.
  • SDK 10. All-new code samples for DirectX and OpenGL.
  • GPU-Accelerated Texture Tools. Now more than 10x faster with GPU acceleration via CUDA, and support for DirectX 10 texture formats.
  • PerfHUD 5. Featuring powerful edit-and-continue for shaders and render states, customizable graphs, DirectX 10 and Vista support, and much more.
  • ShaderPerf 2. Support for vertex and pixel shader analysis as well as Release 100 drivers.

We are showing off all these tools at GDC in booth # 5134 and at our various sessions.  The Shader Library, SDK 10, GPU-Accelerated Texture Tools, and ShaderPerf 2 are now available for download.  Betas of FX Composer 2 and PerfKit 5 will be available soon after GDC.


FX Composer 2

Continue reading "Six All-New Tools Showcased at GDC 2007" »


Mar 6, 2007 | Direct link

This update of our DirectX 9 SDK includes:

  • Coverage-Sampled Antialiasing (CSAA) Tutorial
  • Virtual Shadow Depth Cube Textures code sample
  • Added support for GeForce 8 Series GPUs
  • Minor improvements to: Improved Skinning, Dynamic Ambient Occlusion, and GPU Video effects samples

NVIDIA SDK 9.51 Download Page
NVIDIA SDK 9.51 List of Code Samples


Jan 17, 2007 | Direct link

CSAA produces antialiased images that rival the quality of 8x or 16x MSAA, while introducing only a minimal performance hit over standard (typically 4x) MSAA. It works by introducing the concept of a new sample type: a sample that represents coverage. This differs from previous AA techniques where coverage was always inherently tied to another sample type. In supersampling for example, each sample represents shaded color, stored color/z/stencil, and coverage, which essentially amounts to rendering to an oversized buffer and downfiltering. MSAA reduces the shader overhead of this operation by decoupling shaded samples from stored color and coverage; this allows applications using antialiasing to operate with fewer shaded samples while maintaining the same quality color/z/stencil and coverage sampling. CSAA further optimizes this process by decoupling coverage from color/z/stencil, thus reducing bandwidth and storage costs.

Read the full CSAA white paper


Jan 3, 2007 | Direct link

Cg 1.5 is available for download. This version is more stable and has higher performance. The components include:

• NVIDIA Cg Compiler Release 1.5
• Unified Cg/CgFX Runtime
• Cg User's Manual
• Cg Language Specification
• Sample programs and shaders

Download Cg 1.5 on the Cg Toolkit Page


Dec 6, 2006 | Direct link

We are pleased to announce NVPerfKit 2.1, the latest version of our comprehensive suite of performance tools for debugging and profiling OpenGL and Direct3D software applications for Windows and, for the first time, Linux.

New in this release:

- Release 90 driver support
- 32-bit and 64-bit Linux support (NVPerfSDK only)
- 64-bit Windows support
- Improved features in NVPerfHUD (including "take screenshot" [F10])
- Improved installer with automatic driver removal and installation

Also, don't forget to visit our brand-new NVPerfHUD screenshot gallery, which shows top game titles being analyzed by their developers using NVPerfHUD.


Oct 26, 2006 | Direct link

gdc-london-234.jpgLearn about the global new features and improvements DirectX 10 will soon deliver. Plus find out about the latest DirectX 10 developments by NVIDIA and Microsoft. If DirectX 10 is in your roadmap, make sure you attend this event!

Agenda

  • Gloopy Effects with DX10 (NVIDIA)
  • Windows Performance Topics for Games (Microsoft)
  • Shadow of the Beast (NVIDIA)
  • Exploiting D3D 10 - Advanced Techniques Using D3D 10 (Microsoft)
  • The DX10 Cloning Factory (NVIDIA)
  • Physics on NVIDIA GPUs (NVIDIA/HAVOK)

Take advantage of the early registration price (ends on Sept 22) by registering now on the GDC London site.


Oct 17, 2006 | Direct link

• State of the Art Cross-Platform Shader Development with FX Composer 2
[pdf in English, Japanese]

• Introduction to DX10
[pdf in English, Japanese]

• DX10 Performance and usage considerations
[pdf in English, Japanese]

• Physics Simulation on NVIDIA GPUs
[pdf in English, Japanese]

For more details, go to our CEDEC 2006 page.


Oct 17, 2006 | Direct link


SIGGRAPH 2006

Physics on NVIDIA GPUs
State of the Art Cross Platform Shader Development
Next Generation Effects in DirectX10
Optimize Your GPU with the Latest NVIDIA Performance Tools
(including Linux Performance Tools)

More details on our SIGGRAPH 2006 page.

Develop 2006

Shaders: The Sky is the Limit
Optimize Your GPU with the Latest NVIDIA Performance Tools
Next Generation Games with Direct3D10

More details on our Develop 2006 page.


Oct 17, 2006 | Direct link

gamefest_234.jpg

Gamefest is a unique opportunity to get “one-to-one” face time with NVIDIA engineers to ensure that your application has world class compatibility with Windows Vista and NVIDIA Hardware.

If you are interested, please book an appointment with NVIDIA starting from Sunday, August 13th at 3pm at the registration desk. Our testing suite will welcome developers on Monday 14th and Tuesday 15th, from 10am to 6pm (45 minutes testing slots).

www.microsoftgamefest.com


Oct 17, 2006 | Direct link

siggraph_logo_234x175.jpg

Real-time graphics is going to leap forward again. API are becoming more flexible than ever before allowing a new class of effects and improved developer tools increase performance and productivity on many platforms, including Linux. We invite you to attend the following tutorials:

• Next Generation Programmability in OpenGL
• Physics on NVIDIA GPUs
• State of the Art Cross Platform Shader Development
• Next Generation Effects in DirectX10
• Optimize Your GPU with the Latest NVIDIA Performance Tools (including Linux Performance Tools)

At the end of each session a high-end NVIDIA graphics card will be given away. To participate, swipe your badge at the entrance and get a raffle ticket.

For more details, go to our SIGGRAPH 2006 page.


Oct 17, 2006 | Direct link

NVIDIA Engineers will demonstrate tools to improve shading quality and graphics performance on current projects. They will also talk about what you should absolutely know for your next Direct3D10 title. Do not miss these sessions at the Develop Conference held in Brighton, UK.

Shaders: The Sky is the Limit. NVIDIA and Sony joint presentation
(Thursday July 13th, from 11am - noon)

Optimize Your GPU with the Latest NVIDIA Performance Tools
(Thursday July 13th, from 1:30pm - 2:30pm)

Next Generation Games with Direct3D10
(Thursday July 13th, from 3:00pm - 4:00pm)

Visit our Develop 2006 page for more details.


Oct 17, 2006 | Direct link

Frame_Profiler_250.jpg
NVPerfHUD 4's New Frame Profiler
 
NVPerfSDK's Sample Application

We are proud to release NVPerfKit 2, a comprehensive suite of performance tools to help debug and profile OpenGL and Direct3D applications. NVPerfKit gives you access to low-level performance counters inside the driver and hardware counters inside the GPU itself. The counters can be used to determine exactly how your application is using the GPU, identify performance issues, and confirm that performance problems have been resolved.

A major new component in NVPerfKit 2 is NVPerfHUD 4. This latest version of our real-time performance analysis tool now features automated performance analysis, access to GPU performance counters, updated and improved performance graphs, and much more. In a recent survey, over 100 NVPerfHUD 4 users reported an average performance improvement of 34.8% by using NVPerfHUD 4 to tune their applications.  These users also reported that NVPerfHUD 4 helped them find an average of 11 rendering bugs during development. (Results were obtained from individuals using a variety of system configurations and applications. Individual results may vary.)

NVPerfKit 2 consists of the following components:

  • Instrumented Driver
    • Interfaces with graphics API and GPU to provide performance counter data
    • Automatically installed by NVPerfKit installer
  • NVPerfHUD 4
    • Advanced real-time analysis of Direct3D applications
  • NVPerfSDK
    • NVPerfAPI for accessing GPU signals in your applications
    • Sample code and helper classes for OpenGL(tm) and DirectX(tm) applications
    • NVIDIA Developer Control Panel and instrumented driver
  • NVIDIA Plug-in for Microsoft PIX for Windows
  • GLExpert
    • Debug OpenGL usage errors and performance issues
  • Support for PerfMon, Intel(r) VTune(tm), gDEBugger, and other analysis tools
  • gDEBugger 30-day trial version

Also, don't miss out on NVPerfKit and NVPerfHUD reviews by iXBT (in English and Russian) and GameDev.net.


Oct 17, 2006 | Direct link

Our GDC Presentations are now available in Acrobat and PowerPoint formats.
Visit our GDC 2006 Presentations page and start improving your applications today.

Quick links
Mobile Performance Tools and GPU Performance Tuning
OpenGL ES Content Development Post-Mortem on NVIDIA GPUs
Cross-Platform Development Using FX Composer 2.0
GPU Performance Tuning with NVIDIA Performance Tools
Physics Simulation on NVIDIA GPUs
Variance Shadow Maps
OpenGL SLI and NVX_instanced_arrays
OpenGL Performance Tools
OpenGL GPGPU
DX10: Prepping your Engine for a Smooth Start
DX10: Batching and Performance Considerations
DX10: Practical Metaballs and Implicit surfaces
Khronos: Creating the Embedded Media Processing Ecosystem
When Shaders and Textures Collide
Best Practices for Multi-Threading


Oct 17, 2006 | Direct link

nvidia tools