The Athlon64 Cometh
MonsieurEvil
Join Date: 2002-01-22 Member: 4Members, Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
Join Date: 2002-01-22 Member: 4Members, Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
in Off-Topic
<div class="IPBDescription">and it cometh right quick</div> (From CNET - <a href='http://news.com.com/2100-1006_3-1023436.html?tag=fd_top' target='_blank'>http://news.com.com/2100-1006_3-1023436.ht...html?tag=fd_top</a> )
At the very least, it puts intel back on its heals and starts driving prices and performance wars again. Which is great for consumers (note to intarweb hippy bolsheviks - this is why capitalism pwns your dopy arse every day).
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Advanced Micro Devices is aiming to release a new generation of desktop and notebook chips on Sept. 22, according to an internal document inadvertently released by the company.
AMD's press release schedule, accidentally made public in a mass e-mail on Monday, revealed that date for the unveiling of the Athlon64 for desktops and the Athlon64-M for notebooks.
Hewlett-Packard has already said it will adopt Athlon64 in its desktop line. Last month, HP inadvertently posted specifications pertaining to the chip.
The Athlon64 is AMD's best chance yet to break into the market for business PCs. The chip comes with a number of performance enhancements, including an integrated memory controller.
Additionally, it runs 32-bit software, the kind found on desktops today, and 64-bit software, found on high-end workstations and servers. Intel desktop chips don't have the latter capacity. AMD executives acknowledge that 64-bit desktops, which can take advantage of more memory than 32-bit desktops, will be relatively rare at first, but assert that gamers' enthusiasm and word-of-mouth marketing might be able to build momentum for these desktops.
The chip also comes as AMD continues to suffer financial losses and lose market share. From the end of 1986 through the first quarter of this year, AMD's cumulative net earnings, including sell-offs and acquisition expenses, come to about $221 million, about the same amount of money Intel makes every three weeks. AMD is expected to lose money in the second quarter as well.
The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based chipmaker said in January that the chips would come out in September, but did not provide a release date at the time. The Athlon64 line has been subject to a series of delays over the past two years--before January's delay, the chip had been expected in April.
The exact launch date could change yet again. AMD has reserved space at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco on Sept. 30, but it is unclear what the purpose of that meeting is. Generally, the company holds its big press conferences touting new products in New York or San Jose, Calif.
AMD declined to comment on the dates, but acknowledged that the document was an internal file accidentally released to the outside world.
The document contains other interesting tidbits as well. Later this summer, the company is expected to announce that it is working with a Chinese organization to build the world's fastest supercomputer in China. Germany's Max Planck Institute, one of the world's premier research organizations, is also using Athlon-based computers, according to the documents.
A new Opteron chip, the Opteron 246, is slated to debut on Aug. 4, according to the document. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
At the very least, it puts intel back on its heals and starts driving prices and performance wars again. Which is great for consumers (note to intarweb hippy bolsheviks - this is why capitalism pwns your dopy arse every day).
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Advanced Micro Devices is aiming to release a new generation of desktop and notebook chips on Sept. 22, according to an internal document inadvertently released by the company.
AMD's press release schedule, accidentally made public in a mass e-mail on Monday, revealed that date for the unveiling of the Athlon64 for desktops and the Athlon64-M for notebooks.
Hewlett-Packard has already said it will adopt Athlon64 in its desktop line. Last month, HP inadvertently posted specifications pertaining to the chip.
The Athlon64 is AMD's best chance yet to break into the market for business PCs. The chip comes with a number of performance enhancements, including an integrated memory controller.
Additionally, it runs 32-bit software, the kind found on desktops today, and 64-bit software, found on high-end workstations and servers. Intel desktop chips don't have the latter capacity. AMD executives acknowledge that 64-bit desktops, which can take advantage of more memory than 32-bit desktops, will be relatively rare at first, but assert that gamers' enthusiasm and word-of-mouth marketing might be able to build momentum for these desktops.
The chip also comes as AMD continues to suffer financial losses and lose market share. From the end of 1986 through the first quarter of this year, AMD's cumulative net earnings, including sell-offs and acquisition expenses, come to about $221 million, about the same amount of money Intel makes every three weeks. AMD is expected to lose money in the second quarter as well.
The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based chipmaker said in January that the chips would come out in September, but did not provide a release date at the time. The Athlon64 line has been subject to a series of delays over the past two years--before January's delay, the chip had been expected in April.
The exact launch date could change yet again. AMD has reserved space at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco on Sept. 30, but it is unclear what the purpose of that meeting is. Generally, the company holds its big press conferences touting new products in New York or San Jose, Calif.
AMD declined to comment on the dates, but acknowledged that the document was an internal file accidentally released to the outside world.
The document contains other interesting tidbits as well. Later this summer, the company is expected to announce that it is working with a Chinese organization to build the world's fastest supercomputer in China. Germany's Max Planck Institute, one of the world's premier research organizations, is also using Athlon-based computers, according to the documents.
A new Opteron chip, the Opteron 246, is slated to debut on Aug. 4, according to the document. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Comments
--Scythe--
<a href='http://www.theinquirer.net' target='_blank'>this</a>, <a href='http://slashdot.org' target='_blank'>this</a>, <a href='http://neowin.net' target='_blank'>this</a>, <a href='http://news.google.com' target='_blank'>and this</a>
and start working on the publicity for NS2.0. I know my website is waiting anxiously for some new stuff to put up.
Cheers.
<a href='http://www.theinquirer.net' target='_blank'>this</a>, <a href='http://slashdot.org' target='_blank'>this</a>, <a href='http://neowin.net' target='_blank'>this</a>, <a href='http://news.google.com' target='_blank'>and this</a>
and start working on the publicity for NS2.0. I know my website is waiting anxiously for some new stuff to put up.
Cheers. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
MonsE got pwned by a monkey other than SpyderMonkey. Oh sad, terrible day. <!--emo&:0--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wow.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wow.gif'><!--endemo-->
Pwned
MonsE can multi-task magnificently well, yah. Thats it, he's actually doing it all at one time...
Pwned <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Is it because I linked the Inquirer and not the Register?
Damn stupid IT psuedo journalism rivalries.
here you go monse.
<a href='http://www.theregister.co.uk/' target='_blank'>Register</a> and <a href='http://www.theinquirer.net/' target='_blank'>Inquirer</a>
Its just I figured you were procrastinating cause you dont normally post old news. <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
But if you like dude, I can take over the scanning website news for a couple of days and start posting Monsesque informative news articles.
/me pretends to be Monse
(obligatory reference inside brackets for no apparent reason)
(From - Slashdot, Wired News <a href='http://games.slashdot.org/games/03/07/10/0450236.shtml?tid=127&tid=186' target='_blank'>http://games.slashdot.org/games/03/07/10/0...tid=127&tid=186</a> and
<a href='http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,59566,00.html' target='_blank'>http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,128...2,59566,00.html</a>)
(obligatory witty paraphrase and short personal opinion. No more than 4 sentences - not too funny.)
Finally the world of gaming is merging with that of more mainstream entertainment. Unfortunately, as with everything, Porn pioneers new entertainment, Machinima porn has been round for years (links withheld). But still, how good would it be to see the simpsons made in an artifical environment...ohh wait. At least we know why the new Star Wars movies are crap.
(Insert obligatory quoting of article to feed the lazyness of today's children)
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The fledgling art of using 3-D computer games to make animated movies is coming of age.
Around the world, increasing numbers of would-be movie moguls are utilizing the 3-D graphics engines of games like Quake or Unreal to produce animated movies -- at a fraction of the money spent by studios like Pixar.
Known as machinima ("machine cinema"), the relatively new, no-budget genre has yet to produce a blockbuster of Finding Nemo proportions.
However, machinima is maturing so rapidly, some predict it will soon be a major force in animation, especially with the imminent arrival of a new generation of hardware and software promising an era of photo-realistic "cinematic computing."
In the last year alone, there's been the first full-length machinima feature to tour film festivals around the world -- Jake Hughes' Anachronox: The Movie -- and the first machinima music video in regular rotation on MTV, Zero 7's In the Waiting Line.
An advocacy and support organization -- the Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences -- has been formed, which is putting on the second annual machinima film festival in October.
Sensing the potential for greater sales to the machinima community, game publishers and video-card manufacturers are starting to incorporate movie-making tools into their products.
And while the genre has mainly attracted computer-savvy nerds, machinima is starting to pique the interest of mainstream, non-technical movie talent, who are attracted to the games-meet-Hollywood aesthetic exemplified by movies like The Matrix.
"There's a whole bunch of things coming together at once," said Paul Marino, co-founder of machinima pioneers the Ill Clan and executive director of the Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences. "This is machinima's moment."
Machinima began in the late 1990s, when gamers realized that instead of generating monsters to be blown away, game animation engines could be employed to conjure up imaginative sets, casts of thousands and spectacular special effects.
Better yet, game engines were fast enough to render scenes in real time. In contrast, the tools used for big-budget animations such as Toy Story or Shrek can consume days to generate a few minutes of footage.
To date, machinima has required some expertise to turn a game into a virtual movie set, but that's about to change with a new generation of games that promise to include movie-making tools.
Leading the charge is Epic Games, publisher of the wildly popular Unreal Tournament series. Epic's recently released Unreal Tournament 2003 includes a movie-making tool called Matinee. The company is currently offering $50,000 for the best machinima movie generated in UT2003 in its Make Something Unreal competition.
Several entrants will be showcased at the Machinima Film Festival on October 25 at the American Museum of the Moving Image in New York.
Will Wright is talking about putting movie-making tools in the next version of The Sims, Maxim's best-selling doll house game, and Sierra Entertainment is promising machinima tools in the upcoming Half-Life 2, a highly anticipated first-person shooter, according to a post by a Valve executive on the HalfLife.net discussion board.
"That's an engine we're salivating over," Marino said.
Lionhead Studios, the British company responsible for the highly acclaimed Black & White "god" game, will blend machinima with role playing in a forthcoming game, The Movies.
Players will be in charge of a Hollywood movie studio, complete with actors and crew, charged with making movies, which they'll be able to share with others. Marino sees great potential in the game.
"The convergence of games and Hollywood is gaining momentum, and machinima is right there in the thick of it," he said.
Machinima filmmakers are also using so-called massively multiplayer online games, such as Everquest or the Dark Age of Camelot, to make real-time movies. The games' dungeons-and-dragons environments are the sets, and different players log in over the Internet to control the characters. A host PC is hooked to a VCR or camcorder, and the action is recorded as it unfolds.
The technique is being used to film Portal, a half-hour show on the G4 gaming cable channel. The weekly, scripted show uses a variety of MMOGs as the backdrop for the ongoing cyberspace adventures of creator and star Dave Meinstein.
"It's very popular with our viewers," said a spokeswoman.
Hardware makers are also starting to embrace machinima. Nvidia, for example, is sponsoring the 2003 machinima film festival.
"The use of 3-D graphics hardware to create entertainment content is a very logical outgrowth of our business," said Bill Rehbock, director of developer relations at Nvidia.
Rehbock said machinima methods, in addition to providing a hobby for aspiring filmmakers, are starting to be used in the creative industries far more than is apparent.
For example, George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic is using the Unreal engine to storyboard Star Wars movies, he said.
"We're finding more and more people who are experimenting in a creative, productive way using these next-generation engines," Rehbock said.
The quality of machinima movies today rivals Toy Story five years ago, Rehbock said. He predicted that within a couple of years, animated TV shows will routinely be produced using machinima methods.
Marino concurred. "We're seeing a lot more creative people getting involved. They're starting to see its creative possibilities," he said. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
ps. sorry to hijack your thread just anxious for NS2.0 info. But seriously I can be the forum news b1tch for the next few days.
edit: pps. And whilst I am at it: My second most anticipated event is the reopening on the discussion forums. Whats the chance of this actually happening?
2.edit: tidying up. anyone get the feeling Monse previews <b>ALL</b> his posts?
--Scythe-- <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes it will, as well as UT2k3, WinXP, and win2000 <b>at athlon64 launch</b>
<img src='http://www.e04hardware.com/k8a64/via.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image'>