Parhelia-512: la nuova GPU Matrox

Dan Wood, Matrox Tech Marketing Vice President, ha negli ultimi giorni rilasciato alcune comunicazioni ufficiali in merito al legame tra Matrox e Microsoft, in particolare con riferimento al sistema operativo LongHorn, da poco annunciato in via ufficiale. A seguito dell'annuncio di Microsoft è scaduto l'NDA tra Matrox e Microsoft, inerente il supporto del chip Parhelia a nuove tegnologie che verranno implementate nel prossimo sistema operativo Microsoft. Tra parentesi, in corsivo, sono state aggiunte alcune note esplicative in italiano all'intervento di Dan Wood.

Since our NDA disclosures to press occurred before Microsoft's public announcement regarding LongHorn, we were unable to provide you with the appropriate information regarding Parhelia-512's support for this upcoming operating system. With Microsoft's public disclosure, we can now provide you with additional information.

Matrox has been working closely with Microsoft and has been one of the main lobbyist for the inclusion of the new graphics initiatives in LongHorn. These include:

• Off-loading most 2D graphics operations previously handled by the OS and the CPU to the GPU. This improves performance for such operations and gives applications programmers more flexibility in improving the GUI (graphical user interface) for future applications (buona parte delle operazioni grafiche precedentemente gestite dal sistema operativo via software vengono ora eseguite direttamente dalla GPU a livello hardware).
• Offering higher color fidelity for the Windows desktop. Longhorn and DirectX 9 is expected to support 10-bit per color channel precision natively for all source images, operations and output modes. The need for higher color fidelity moves beyond just supporting higher precision DACs and finds its way into the entire graphics pipeline. This becomes increasingly important as graphics operations are off-loaded to the GPU and therefore executed with higher color precision in the graphics pipeline (supporto dei 10bit per canale, feature già implementata nel chip Parhelia-512).
• Using the DirectX 3D pipeline to render the entire Windows desktop. This enables all windows and applications to be treated like 3D objects and provides the platform a 3D desktop. Each application provider can independently control the level of 3D and the types of effects applied to their applications. Feature such as high quality anisotropic filtering ensure that the fidelity of text is maintained when mapped onto non-planar windows (anche il desktop di Windows verrà trattato come una serie di oggetti 3D e quindi gestito attraverso le API DirectX).
• Improving VMR (Video Mixing Renderer) to take advantage of new graphics feature. A concept first introduced by Matrox with the Flex 3D architecture for the RT2000 product line, front end video rendering using programmable 3D effects has become an integral part of DirectX VA and VMR. With LongHorn, VMR will offer the higher color precision (10bit per channel) and facilitate the use of advanced 3D effects using pixel shaders and advanced filtering techniques.

These are just of few of the highlights of the graphics enhancements in the upcoming operating system. Parhelia-512 is fully compliant with Microsoft's LongHorn operating system. It offers amongst other things:

• Full programmability and flexibility in the hardware and software to enable the off-loading of all graphics operations to the GPU. These even include features such as fully gamma correctable text antialiasing (Glyph Antialiasing) which Matrox has also enabled for current generation operating systems (funzionalità di antialiasing dei testi con correzione gamma programmabile, con supporto hardware della GPU).
  See Windows "Longhorn" Graphics Infrastructure and Text Rendering & Hardware Accelerating Desktop Graphics and Color Management
  http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/futurepc/winhec2002/default.asp#Client
• Full 10-bit precision throughout the graphics pipeline to provide the best support for the higher color fidelity initiative. With 10-bit GigaColor technology, the Parhelia-512 offers more than just 10-bit DACs. The additional precision is available in all part of the pipeline including source color formats, frame buffers, vertex shaders, pixel shaders, texturing units, video processing unit, display controllers, DACs, TV encoder, Look Up Tables (LUTs) and for gamma correction (pieno supporto dell'intera pipeline grafica a 10bit per colore).
  Hardware Accelerating Desktop Graphics and Color Management
  http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/futurepc/winhec2002/default.asp#Client
• Full programmability and flexibility in the 3D pipeline to seamlessly enable the usage of 3D effects on the desktop, and to enable a 3D multi-display desktop. The deep vertex and pixel pipes of Parhelia-512 allow for complex 3D operations and effects while sustaining performance (supporto di funzionalità 3D direttamente sul desktop).
  See Hardware Accelerating Desktop Graphics and Color Management
  http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/futurepc/winhec2002/default.asp#Client
• A 256-bit DDR memory interface that provides sufficient bandwidth in an environment when each window on the desktop is treated as a 3D texture. This is especially useful in a high resolution, multi-display desktop environment where the processing and compositing of all the windows the pixels within require sufficient bandwidth between the frame buffer and the GPU. For example a single display 1600x1200x32bit desktop at 60Hz requires ~ 2.3 GB/s of bandwidth for display and refresh (la notevole bandwidth della memoria video garantisce la sufficiente riserva di potenza per la gestione di textures 3D direttamente in ogni finestra del desktop).
  See Windows "Longhorn" Graphics Infrastructure and Text Rendering
  http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/futurepc/winhec2002/default.asp#Client
• Full compliancy for VMR including the seamless incorporation of video in the 3D pipeline. Moreover, like the previous Matrox graphics technologies, Parhelia-512 has full support for non-sqaure, non-power-of-2, mip-mapped YUV textures (pieno supporto alle texture YUV mip-mapped, non quadrate, non multiple di due).
  See DirectX Graphics Video Rendering
  http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/futurepc/winhec2002/default.asp#Client

Sarà necessario attendere ancora parecchi mesi prima di vedere all'opera LongHorn ma già sin d'ora si può capire come la direzione che Microsoft vuole intraprendere è quella del delegare all GPU la maggior parte di calcoli grafici possibili, allo stesso tempo sfruttando le funzionalità 3D della GPU arricchendo il desktop con effetti di varia natura.