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GeForce 200
The GeForce 200 series is a series of Tesla-based GeForce graphics processing units developed by Nvidia. Architecture The GeForce 200 series introduced Nvidia's second generation of the Tesla microarchitecture, Nvidia's unified shader architecture; the first major update to it since introduced with the GeForce 8 series. The GeForce GTX 280 and GTX 260 are based on the same processor core. During the manufacturing process, GTX chips were binned and separated through defect testing of the core's logic functionality. Those that failed to meet the GTX 280 hardware specification were re-tested and binned as GTX 260 (which is specified with fewer stream processors, fewer ROPs and a narrower memory bus). In late 2008, Nvidia re-released the GTX 260 with 216 stream processors, up from 192. Effectively, there were two GTX 260 cards in production with non-trivial performance differences. The GeForce 200 series GPUs (GT200a/b GPU), excluding GeForce GTS 250, GTS 240 GPUs (these are o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geometry Shader
In computer graphics, a shader is a computer program that calculates the appropriate levels of light, darkness, and color during the rendering of a 3D scene—a process known as '' shading''. Shaders have evolved to perform a variety of specialized functions in computer graphics special effects and video post-processing, as well as general-purpose computing on graphics processing units. Traditional shaders calculate rendering effects on graphics hardware with a high degree of flexibility. Most shaders are coded for (and run on) a graphics processing unit (GPU), though this is not a strict requirement. ''Shading languages'' are used to program the GPU's rendering pipeline, which has mostly superseded the fixed-function pipeline of the past that only allowed for common geometry transforming and pixel-shading functions; with shaders, customized effects can be used. The position and color ( hue, saturation, brightness, and contrast) of all pixels, vertices, and/or tex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Render Output Unit
In computer graphics, the render output unit or raster operations pipeline (ROP) is a hardware component in modern graphics processing units (GPUs) and one of the final steps in the rendering process of modern graphics cards. The pixel pipelines take pixel (each pixel is a dimensionless point) and texel information and process it, via specific matrix and vector operations, into a final pixel or depth value; this process is called rasterization. Thus, ROPs control antialiasing, when more than one sample is merged into one pixel. The ROPs perform the transactions between the relevant buffers in the local memory – this includes writing or reading values, as well as blending them together. Dedicated antialiasing hardware used to perform hardware-based antialiasing methods like MSAA is contained in ROPs. All data rendered has to travel through the ROP in order to be written to the framebuffer, from there it can be transmitted to the display. Therefore, the ROP is where the GPU ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Texture Mapping Unit
In computer graphics, a texture mapping unit (TMU) is a component in modern graphics processing units (GPUs). They are able to rotate, resize, and distort a bitmap image to be placed onto an arbitrary plane of a given 3D model as a texture, in a process called texture mapping. In modern graphics cards it is implemented as a discrete stage in a graphics pipeline, whereas when first introduced it was implemented as a separate processor, e.g. as seen on the Voodoo2 graphics card. Background and history The TMU came about due to the compute demands of sampling and transforming a flat image (as the texture map) to the correct angle and perspective it would need to be in 3D space. The compute operation is a large matrix multiply, which CPUs of the time (early Pentiums for example) could not cope with at an acceptable level of performance. In 2013, TMUs are part of the shader pipeline and decoupled from the Render Output Pipelines (ROPs). For example, in AMD's Cypress GPU, each s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unified Shader Model
In the field of 3D computer graphics, the unified shader model (known in Direct3D 10 as " Shader Model 4.0") refers to a form of shader hardware in a graphical processing unit (GPU) where all of the shader stages in the rendering pipeline A pipeline is a system of Pipe (fluid conveyance), pipes for long-distance transportation of a liquid or gas, typically to a market area for consumption. The latest data from 2014 gives a total of slightly less than of pipeline in 120 countries ... (geometry, vertex, pixel, etc.) have the same capabilities. They can all read textures and buffers, and they use instruction set architecture, instruction sets that are almost identical. History Earlier GPUs generally included two types of shader hardware, with the ''vertex shaders'' having considerably more instructions than the simpler ''pixel shaders''. This lowered the cost of implementation of the GPU as a whole, and allowed more shaders in total on a single unit. This was at the cost of mak ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
HDMI
High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a proprietary digital interface used to transmit high-quality video and audio signals between devices. It is commonly used to connect devices such as televisions, computer monitors, projectors, gaming consoles, and personal computers. HDMI supports uncompressed video and either compressed or uncompressed digital audio, allowing a single cable to carry both signals. Introduced in 2003, HDMI largely replaced older analog video standards such as composite video, S-Video, and VGA connector, VGA in consumer electronics. It was developed based on the CEA-861 standard, which was also used with the earlier Digital Visual Interface (DVI). HDMI is electrically compatible with DVI video signals, and adapters allow interoperability between the two without signal conversion or loss of quality. Adapters and active converters are also available for connecting HDMI to other video interfaces, including the older analog formats, as well as digital fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
LPCM
Pulse-code modulation (PCM) is a method used to digitally represent analog signals. It is the standard form of digital audio in computers, compact discs, digital telephony and other digital audio applications. In a PCM stream, the amplitude of the analog signal is sampled at uniform intervals, and each sample is quantized to the nearest value within a range of digital steps. Alec Reeves, Claude Shannon, Barney Oliver and John R. Pierce are credited with its invention. Linear pulse-code modulation (LPCM) is a specific type of PCM in which the quantization levels are linearly uniform. This is in contrast to PCM encodings in which quantization levels vary as a function of amplitude (as with the A-law algorithm or the μ-law algorithm). Though ''PCM'' is a more general term, it is often used to describe data encoded as LPCM. A PCM stream has two basic properties that determine the stream's fidelity to the original analog signal: the sampling rate, which is the numb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nvidia PureVideo
PureVideo is Nvidia's hardware SIP core that performs video decoding. PureVideo is integrated into some of the Nvidia GPUs, and it supports hardware decoding of multiple video codec standards: MPEG-2, VC-1, H.264, HEVC, and AV1. PureVideo occupies a considerable amount of a GPU's die area and should not be confused with Nvidia NVENC. In addition to video decoding on chip, PureVideo offers features such as edge enhancement, noise reduction, deinterlacing, dynamic contrast enhancement and color enhancement. Operating system support The PureVideo SIP core needs to be supported by the device driver, which provides one or more interfaces such as NVDEC, VDPAU, VAAPI or DXVA. One of these interfaces is then used by end-user software, for example VLC media player or GStreamer, to access the PureVideo hardware and make use of it. Nvidia's proprietary device driver is available for multiple operating systems and support for PureVideo has been added to it. Additionally, a free d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
40 Nanometer
The term die shrink (sometimes optical shrink or process shrink) refers to the scaling of metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) devices. The act of shrinking a die creates a somewhat identical circuit using a more advanced fabrication process, usually involving an advance of lithographic nodes. This reduces overall costs for a chip company, as the absence of major architectural changes to the processor lowers research and development costs while at the same time allowing more processor dies to be manufactured on the same piece of silicon wafer, resulting in less cost per product sold. Die shrinks are the key to lower prices and higher performance at semiconductor companies such as Samsung, Intel, TSMC, and SK Hynix, and fabless manufacturers such as AMD (including the former ATI), NVIDIA and MediaTek. Details Examples in the 2000s include the downscaling of the PlayStation 2's Emotion Engine processor from Sony and Toshiba (from 180 nm CMOS in 2000 to 90 nm CMOS in 200 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
AnandTech
''AnandTech'' was an online computer hardware magazine owned by Future plc. It was founded in April 1997 by then-14-year-old Anand Lal Shimpi, who was CEO and editor-in-chief until August 2014, with Ryan Smith replacing him as editor-in-chief. The website was a source of hardware reviews for off-the-shelf components and exhaustive benchmarking, targeted towards computer-building enthusiasts, but later expanded to cover mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Some of their articles on mass-market products such as mobile phones were syndicated by CNNMoney. The large accompanying forum is recommended by some books for bargain hunting in the technology field. AnandTech was acquired by Purch on 17 December 2014. Purch was acquired by Future in 2018. On August 30, 2024, the publication shut down. The content of the website was said to be preserved, but no new articles or reviews would be published. The AnandTech forums would continue to operate. History In its early s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
32 Nm Process
The "32 nm" node is the step following the "45 nm" process in CMOS (MOSFET) semiconductor device fabrication. "32-nanometre" refers to the average half-pitch (i.e., half the distance between identical features) of a memory cell at this technology level. Toshiba produced commercial 32 GiB NAND flash memory chips with the "32nm" process in 2009. Intel and AMD produced commercial microchips using the "32 nm" process in the early 2010s. IBM and the Common Platform also developed a "32 nm" high-κ metal gate process. Intel began selling its first "32 nm" processors using the Westmere architecture on 7 January 2010. Since at least 1997, "process nodes" have been named purely on a marketing basis, and have no relation to the dimensions on the integrated circuit; neither gate length, nor metal pitch, nor gate pitch on a "32nm" device is thirty-two nanometers. The "28 nm" node is an intermediate half-node die shrink based on the "32 nm" process. The "32 nm" process ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kepler (microarchitecture)
Kepler is the codename for a GPU microarchitecture developed by Nvidia, first introduced at retail in April 2012, as the successor to the Fermi microarchitecture. Kepler was Nvidia's first microarchitecture to focus on energy efficiency. Most GeForce 600 series, most GeForce 700 series, and some GeForce 800M series GPUs were based on Kepler, all manufactured in 28 nm. Kepler found use in the GK20A, the GPU component of the Tegra K1 SoC, and in the Quadro Kxxx series, the Quadro NVS 510, and Tesla computing modules. Kepler was followed by the Maxwell microarchitecture and used alongside Maxwell in the GeForce 700 series and GeForce 800M series. The architecture is named after Johannes Kepler, a German mathematician and key figure in the 17th century Scientific Revolution. Overview The goal of Nvidia's previous architecture was design focused on increasing performance on compute and tessellation. With the Kepler architecture, Nvidia targeted their focus on effic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
