The GeForce GT 240 I have tested and reviewed in this article is made by InnoVISION and it sports one of the latest GPUs from Nvidia which supports some interesting technologies like Purevideo, CUDA and PhysX and it is made on the newer 40nm technology.
Features, Specifications
Features, Specifications
Features :
2nd Generation NVIDIA® Unified Architecture
The 240 enhanced processor cores that provide incredible shading horsepower is achieved via delivery of the second generation architecture with 50% more gaming performance over the first generation.
NVIDIA PhysX™ Ready
GeForce GPU support for NVIDIA PhysX technology - enabling a totally new class of physical gaming interaction for a more dynamic and realistic experience with GeForce. The PhysX processor is noted for being specifically designed to accelerate dynamic physical motion and interaction in games such as Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 (GRAW 2).
NVIDIA® Unified Architecture
Fully unified shader core dynamically allocates processing power to geometry, vertex, physics or pixel shading operations, delivering up to 2X the gaming performance of prior generation GPUs
GigaThread™ Technology
Massively multi-threaded architecture supports thousands of independent, simultaneous threads, providing extreme processing efficiency in advanced, next generation shader programs
NVIDIA® Lumenex™ Engine
Delivers stunning image and floating point accuracy at ultra-fast frame rate
16x Anti-aliasing
Lightning fast, high quality anti-aliasing at up to 16x sample rates obliterates jagged edges
128-bit floating point High Dynamic-Range (HDR)
Twice the precision of prior generations for incredibly realistic lighting effects-now with support for anti-aliasing
NVIDIA® Quantum Effect™ Technology
Advanced shader processors architected for physics computation enable a new level of physics effects to be simulated and rendered on the GPU-all while freeing the CPU to run the game engine and AI
Delivers a proven record of compatibility, reliability and stability with the widest range of games and applications. ForceWare ensures the best out-of-box experience for every user and delivers continuous performance and feature updates over the life of NVIDIA GeForce GPUs
OpenGL® 2.0 Optimizations and Support
Ensures top-notch compatibility and performance for Open GL applications.
NVIDIA® nView Multi-Display Technology Advanced technology provides the ultimate in viewing flexible and control for multiple monitors.
PCI Express Support
Designed to run perfectly with the PCI Express bus architecture, which doubles the bandwidth of AGP 8X to deliver over 4 GB/sc in both upstream and downstream data transfer
Built for Microsoft® Windows Vista
Nvidia’s fourth-generation GPU architecture built for Windows Vista gives users the best possible experience with the Windows Aero 3D graphical user interface
NVIDIA® PureVideo™ technology
The combination of high-definition video decode acceleration and post-processing that delivers unprecedented picture clarity, smooth video, accurate color and precise image scaling for movies and video
Specifications :
About Nvidia PhysX
Delivering physics in games is no easy task. It's an extremely compute-intensive environment based on a unique set of physics algorithms that require tremendous amounts of simultaneous mathematical and logical calculations.
This is where NVIDIA® PhysX™ Technology and GeForce® processors come in. NVIDIA PhysX is a powerful physics engine which enables real-time physics in leading edge PC and console games. PhysX software is widely adopted by over 150 games, is used by more than 10,000 registered users and is supported on Sony Playstation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii and PC.
In addition, PhysX is designed specifically for hardware acceleration by powerful processors with hundreds of cores. Combined with the tremendous parallel processing capability of the GPU, PhysX will provide an exponential increase in physics processing power and will take gaming to a new level delivering rich, immersive physical gaming environments with features such as:
* Explosions that cause dust and collateral debris * Characters with complex, jointed geometries for more life-like motion and interaction * Spectacular new weapons with incredible effects * Cloth that drapes and tears naturally * Dense smoke & fog that billow around objects in motion
The only way to get real physics with the scale, sophistication, fidelity and level of interactivity that dramatically alters your entertainment experience will be with one of the millions of NVIDIA PhysX-ready GeForce processors.
Here are some PhysX demos from Youtube :
Fluid demo :
The Great Kulu :
Deformable objects :
Nvidia CUDA :
NVIDIA® CUDA™ is a general purpose parallel computing architecture that leverages the parallel compute engine in NVIDIA graphics processing units (GPUs) to solve many complex computational problems in a fraction of the time required on a CPU. It includes the CUDA Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) and the parallel compute engine in the GPU. To program to the CUDATM architecture, developers can, today, use C, one of the most widely used high-level programming languages, which can then be run at great performance on a CUDATM enabled processor. Other languages will be supported in the future, including FORTRAN and C++.
With over 100 million CUDA-enabled GPUs sold to date, thousands of software developers are already using the free CUDA software development tools to solve problems in a variety of professional and home applications – from video and audio processing and physics simulations, to oil and gas exploration, product design, medical imaging, and scientific research.
Technology features :
* Standard C language for parallel application development on the GPU * Standard numerical libraries for FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) and BLAS (Basic Linear Algebra Subroutines) * Dedicated CUDA driver for computing with fast data transfer path between GPU and CPU * CUDA driver interoperates with OpenGL and DirectX graphics drivers * Support for Linux 32/64-bit and Windows XP 32/64-bit operating systems