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AMD increases power for CG artists

Introduction

The FirePro graphics card company, AMD, explains its latest updates – and what they mean for graphics applications.

Introduction

NVIDIA versus AMD is an ancient and ongoing battle between two giant tech companies, much like Android versus Apple or Sonic versus Mario. These fights for dominance are a good thing: they mean that the market never stagnates because they're always trying to outdo one another – but they also inevitably result in one of the two companies becoming the underdog.

Historically, AMD has played second fiddle to NVIDIA's graphics supremacy. However, the Californian graphics and processor chip company appears to be on the up: its GPUs will power gaming on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, and its FirePro graphics cards are exploding (not literally) in the professional sector. We met with the company's head honchos in a plush London hotel to talk about the future of the latter.

As well as providing the cards that power entertainment such as games and films, AMD plays a crucial role in medical imaging and architecture

"We've gone from 60 applications to 170 that have been ported to OpenCL”

The OpenCL key

Key to AMD's planned success is OpenCL, a programming language which allows developers to make use of graphics chips' parallel processing technology. It works a little like NVIDIA's CUDA software, but while CUDA is locked down to NVIDIA cards, OpenCL is open-source and available to all. Its industry-wide adoption is staggering, with many tech and software companies looking to implement the groundbreaking tech in their programs and hardware.

AMD has its fingers in most contemporary tech-pies, from small laptops to whopping great servers

"We've gone from 60 applications to 170 that have been ported to OpenCL,” said Ed Caracappa, AMD's director of global sales and business development. "It bodes very well for us – people want to use our technology, and do it in an open environment, not the locked-down proprietary environment that the competition offers. We intend to continue to move in this direction with a number of other partners.”

AMD claimed that OpenCL on a FirePro card leads to eight-times the performance you'd get from running Premiere Pro on a standard CPU, and that the system is 40% faster than NVIDIA's CUDA. "The fact that Adobe has come on board, adopted OpenCL and actually ported CS as OpenCL-accelerated – this is a big deal, because it really opens the door for us to have other people take this on,” said Caracappa.

Realview adds ambient occlusion and shaders to 3D models in realtime so previews look more realistic

"These are performance enhancements that you'll only get right now with a FirePro graphics card”

Dodging the bullet

Adobe isn't the only company to jump into the OpenCL: Autodesk's Maya animation software has OpenCL enhancements to its Bullet physics plug-in, which means complex object interaction and destruction happens far more quickly. "These are performance enhancements that you'll only get right now with a Firepro graphics card,” Caracappa said.

In addition, stereo 3D has just been added to Autodesk's 3ds Max, and again it's exclusive to AMD FirePro cards. "If you download the extension release of 3ds Max you get the ability to add in stereo workflow inside the software. Before, you'd have to render stuff out to get stereo, but now if you go to the Viewport you can select multiple stereo options, and if you want to do active stereo – which is what most studios use – you can only do that on a FirePro card,” said Robert Jamieson, AMD's intriguingly-titled alliance manager.

Order independent transparency (OIT) allows engineers and designers to see through designs without any clipping

Order-independent transparency is another useful feature exclusive to FirePro. This technology means you can see through 3D objects on screen, and while it's more useful for complex CAD models it will work with 3ds Max and Maya. It works by sorting the triangles of a model on the graphics card's processor, rather than using the computer's CPU. We were given a demonstration of the technology on both NVIDIA and AMD cards, and the latter was far smoother while the former became choppy.

"You can just go into that room and zoom in yourself - just walk closer to the screen"

Eyefinity, AMD's bespoke multiple-monitor support, has really come into its own with a project at Stony Brook University on Long Island in New York City. "They created what's called the 'Reality Deck,'” says Glen Matthews, AMD's senior manager of workstation graphics. "It has just south of 420 displays in a room which gives you a 360-degree view. It's got 1.5 billion pixels. If you're a scientist and you've just cracked some protein and you want to have a real close look you can just go into that room and zoom in yourself – just walk closer to the screen.”

Stony Brook University's Reality Deck uses 72 graphics cards and 16 'sync' cards to display massive amounts of data on 416 displays

A bite from the Apple

We'd love to go into the Reality Deck and fire up Assassin's Creed in mind-boggling 360-degree HD, but then we remembered FirePro is AMD's serious graphics unit. While its presentation was – obviously – very much about promoting the company and the FirePro brand, it seems that AMD is making moves in the right direction, especially by encouraging its partners to jump on the OpenCL standard.

"In my view it's the tipping point for OpenCL”

AMD has another ace up its sleeve: dual FirePro graphics feature in Apple's hugely exciting new Mac Pro, which has received a cylindrical overhaul. "I can't really say too much to you guys about this one,” says Matthews. "But I can say that it's going to be really awesome. In my view it's the tipping point for OpenCL.”

AMD's workstation graphics cards range from the £200 FirePro 2450 to the £600 FirePro V7900

SGraphics Core Next is AMD's latest chip architecture, which enables general computing alongside 3D visuals

Related Links

AMD
FirePro
Reality Deck YouTube Introduction

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