AMD’s Cinema 2.0… Wow. Seriously.
Sweet mother of Carmack! Did somebody say gaming on the PC was dead? Well, ok, I’ve been accused of saying that, but the flood of game titles has been on a tremendous decline since developers discovered that consoles print money. But I digress. So, what are the PC hardware manufacturers doing to combat the dreaded console menace? That video you see right up there. Take a moment to watch it. I’ll wait. Done? Good, now watch it again. Seriously. Pay very close attention. That my friend is REAL-TIME. Yeah, not pre-rendered. Not some fancy Sony video that claims gameplay but is obviously a cutscene. Real. Time. Text can’t express the emphasis I’m trying for here. Hit the jump for the full scoop on this piece of lovely from our friends at AMD/ATI.
The video is a leaked demo that AMD/ATI gave to the press showing off their new Scorpion platform, at the heart of which is two of the new ATI RV770 GPUs, strapped together in Crossfire on a Hyper-Transport 3.0 bus. Actually, two demos leaked, but the other one (below this text) is what you’d expect. Lots of flashy action and stuff crashing. I prefer the more subtle approach of rendering what is a fairly hum-drum life in motion environment in an extremely convincing manner. Seriously. That’s impressive. I do hope the consoles are ready for war, ’cause the sleeping giant may have just awakened. These puppies hit the market next week, so get ready to smash your piggy bank if you want some of the hotness. AnandTech has a nice write-up on the entry level card in the series on their site (LINK), and if that’s what the $200 USD card can do, I can’t wait to see what the big daddy is capable of.
The reported specs:
- Two AMD RV770 cards in Crossfire
- A Phenom X49850 processor
- AMD 790FX chipset
So, what exactly is cinema? Just this combination of products? It looks amazing and im gonna have to hold off a couple weeks now on getting a new pc to see how this turns out.
But just these amazing graphics arent going to save PC, its not like PC has been suffering next to consoles graphics wise. The price, complexity and other things keep the PC from being popular and i dont think this, as amazing as it looks, will do much to help PC gaming. The price for the parts listed are over $600, which still dosent include memory, hard drives or a case as you wont be able to just use those parts in a store bought pc case because of the motherboard switch required
PC graphics have been suffering; because the consoles finally caught up to them. This marks the beginning of a change in that.
It’s not going to suddenly make the PC a gaming giant again, but for the first time since the Next-Gen consoles hit, the graphics divide has started to show. With a $200 video card able to render environments that exceed the capabilities of current consoles, the PC may very well attract more developers again. And with a part that will certainly be inexpensive to OEMs, there is a VERY good chance you’ll see this turning up in mid-range computers from major manufacturers.
And dude, Cinema is just the name of the event that this vid came from. You don’t actually need to buy all that AMD stuff to use this card. Any PC with a 16x PCIe slot will do, and most mid-range computers today have them.
Well its not a $200 graphics card, its 2 $200 graphics card and a $200 processor and a motherboard. Which means you need to build a custom PC or buy a pc specifically with those parts. And honestly, a PC game with max graphics looks way better than the 360 counterpart
and i thought amd cinema was a platform of sort because of the 2.0, its a wierd thing to use in the name of a event
Ever thought about writing instead of bitching in the comments? ;-)
I wouldnt call feedback bitching, i was giving my opinion on the article you wrote because i honestly dont understand your point. And yes i probably should write something, i have a couple ideas
My point is “Look at the pretty graphics, ATI has a new card”. Pretty simple stuff. Need me to draw you a chart?
All I care about is shiny things. This is shiny… it makes me happy. On another note, PC gaming has always been something of a short sale. Compared to consoles PCs don’t get nearly the amount of titles. But people that PC game aren’t just gaming on their $1200 PCs. So cost is a moot point. But on my next system build you can be sure that I take all of this into account, it opens a whole new door.
Also… controllers suck ass, keyboard and mouse are the best gaming interface ever… EVER!