Tickets to the AMD Fusion Developer Summit (AFDS) are valued at $300 but HotHardware is giving away 25 of them. Become a fan of HotHardware on Facebook and share this post to get the word out (there’s a Share button at the bottom of the post). Then drop HH a line at amd.tickets@hothardware.com with your contact information. Winners will get a free registration code.
Siemens PLM World Conference was held last week in Las Vegas with over 1900 attendees from some of the largest corporate CAD users in the world (e.g. Grumman, Boeing, JP, Daimler, Baker Hughes).
AMD made a strong showing in the Saratech booth with live demos of remote graphics with Siemens PLM Software NX, 3-display Eyefinity with NX running on laptops, APU demonstrator with NX, and several OpenCL demos.
BSN interviewed John Taylor, Director of Client Product and Software Marketing at AMD, regarding the upcoming Fusion Developer Summit to be held June 13-16, 2011 at the Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue, Washington.
Both Microsoft and Arm will be giving keynotes at the event. ARM is going to reiterate their commitment to OpenCL with their own Mali series GPU, tying nicely to AMD’s Fusion APUs, i.e. Ontario (9W) and Zacate (18W) and upcoming Llano APUs (up to 95W).
Also noteworthy from the interview:
With Fusion architecture, CPU (ok, APU) is getting a driver update each and every month for the first time in history of the silicon. The company insists on a vision that by making a continuous Catalyst driver updates for the Ontario/Zacate/Llano APUs, the CPU and GPU parts will be constantly updated with application profiles and API updates. As a result, users of AMD APUs should experience smoother application performance as the time passes by.
Do note that with the Fusion strategy, AMD is no longer just following computing standards, but rather setting them in silicon with smart adjustments. A good example for that is the upcoming C-60 APU that gives you up to 33% higher performance in typical CPU tasks or a massive 43% performance boost in DirectX / OpenGL / OpenCL - all while staying in the same power envelope (9W).
GDC 2011 is in full swing, and although it is a gaming show, many professional products developers attend to learn visualization techniques. This year AMD is presenting several sessions worth checking out.
Efficient Compute Shader Programming (Wednesday 10:30-11:30 Room 301, South Hall)
Direct3D 11 Compute Shaders can be a powerful feature to improve graphics performance, such as post processing. Compute shaders can also be used to improve the performance of tasks traditionally run on the CPU. However, seemingly minor changes to Compute Shader code can have a huge effect on the performance. This talk will explain how an understanding of the underlying hardware architecture can help you make coding decisions that will make your compute shaders perform better. It will also show how AMDs GPU PerfStudio tool can be used to debug and analyze compute shaders to enable the best performance possible.
Optimizing and Debugging Graphics Applications with AMD’s GPU PerfStudio 2.5 (Wednesday 4:30- 5:30 Room 123, North Hall)
AMD’s GPU PerfStudio 2 is a tool for debugging and optimizing graphics applications that is actively being used by a number of game development studios on their next generation DirectX 11 and OpenGL titles. GPU PerfStudio 2 incorporates a powerful Profiler, Frame Capture, Frame Debugger and integrated Shader Debugger which makes it a versatile and effective debugging tool for the game developer. In this talk AMD will demonstrate the latest version of GPU PerfStudio 2 and will highlight advanced DirectX 11 feature support.
Programming for AMD Fusion APUs (Thursday 9:00-10:00 Room 120, North Hall)
Well take a high level programmers view of AMDs new Fusion APUs which have started to appear in numerous PCs from the start of 2011. Well look at the hardwares DirectX 11 capabilities, how to handle scaling performance for such a diverse platform, what to expect from the CPU side and what opportunities the amazing new levels of integration create.
Experts CAD users join technical experts form SolidWorks, AMD and Dell to discuss how to help you as a CAD user, figure out what you need to do with hardware and software to become more competitive. Basically to do more in less time, and to not get bogged by technical setups and idiosyncrasies. When you get the combination right, the technology becomes invisible and you spend your time (presumably billable) on producing mechanical or engineering designs or presenting those designs to managers or clients in the most compelling way.
This is an actual panel discussion, not a series of canned marketing presentation. As an attendee you can ask questions about the best setup for your work, mobile vs desktop, trends in CAD, etc. Depending on time, these questions will be posed to the panel or answered individually via chat.
Cadalyst is hosting and I’m moderating. I intend to bring questions from readers of this site. So it should be interesting.
The Canon dome at ISE 2011 features three 7thSense media servers, each with a FirePro V8800 linked via a FirePro S400 synchronization module, to create a giant 3200 X 3200 blended fisheye movie. Ten Canon projectors create an immersive experience in the dome for the audience with a combined image that measures 9 meters across.
See the first image for how the projectors map and check out the video of the actual presentation.
This demo from the ISE 2011 show in Amsterdam, shows the Lang AG booth with an interactive 6-display video wall driven by an ATI FirePro V9800 with Eyefinity. creating a life-like high performance 3D aquarium. The interactivity (touch the screen and fish sense you and move to you like real fish) is enabled by radarTouch and a little AI program. The images looks compellingly real. The smal 6.5mm l bezel on the Sharp PN-V601 displays help complete the illusion.
For applications beyond an Aquarium, think about the company (Lang) showing it: Digital Signage.
At CES, in addition to showing off Kinect, Microsoft also showed off their next generation multi-touch Surface platform on the Samsung SUR40. This new version was powered by the AMD Athlon II X2 embedded processor and Radeon HD 6700M graphic to deliver high performance with low power requirements. See the video below or check out the press release.
SolidWorks World 2011 is coming up Jan 23-26 and of course AMD will be there showing off the performance of the FirePro line (Partner Pavilion booth #606).
In advance of the event, the SolidWorks blog folks interviewed Bahman Dara, Senior Manager of Product Marketing for the FirePro workstation graphics line. The key points of that interview:
How can FirePro help make a SolidWorks user’s life easier?
- Improve productivity and reduce design cycles with cards that are engineered, tested and certified to ensure reliability, and exceptional 3D performance.
- AMD Eyefinity technology lets you run up to six monitors at full HD resolution, simultaneously on a single graphics card. Expand your view and multitask with ease.
Check out the Eyefinity video below which is featured in the blog post.
Great video capture from AutoDesk University 2010 showing off Eyefinity on FirePro video cards. You see Eyefinity in games all of the time, but it is really amazing (to me) to see it running in professional applications.
Each of these video snippets shows a single graphics card driving anywhere between 3-6 displays, and one or more apps.
FireUser.com is a community resource for CAD, visualization, 3D, video and engineering professionals to learn about the latest acceleration and display technologies and news with a focus on the AMD FirePro workstation graphics line.
