Nvidia Corp. said during a conference for financial analysts that the emergence of next-generation DirectX 11 application programming interface will not drive sales of graphics cards. The firm believes that general purpose computing on graphics processing units (GPGPU) as well as its proprietary tools and emergence of software taking advantage of these technologies will be a better driver for sales of graphics boards than new demanding video games and high-end cards.
“DirectX 11 by itself is not going be the defining reason to buy a new GPU. It will be one of the reasons. This is why Microsoft is in work with the industry to allow more freedom and more creativity in how you build content, which is always good, and the new features in DirectX 11 are going to allow people to do that. But that no longer is the only reason, we believe, consumers would want to invest in a GPU,” said Mike Hara, vice president of investor relations at Nvidia, at Deutsche Bank Securities Technology Conference on Wednesday.
Nvidia believes that special-purpose software that relies on GPGPU technologies will drive people to upgrade their graphics processing units (GPUs), not advanced visual effects in future video games or increased raw performance of DirectX 11-compliant graphics processors.
“Now, we know, people are doing a lot in the area of video, people are going to do more and more in the area of photography… I think that the things we are doing would allow the GPU to be a co-processor to the CPU and deliver better user experience, better battery life and make that computers little bit more optimized,” added Mr. Hara.
There are several problems for Nvidia, though. While ATI, graphics business unit of Advanced Micro Devices, is about to launch its Radeon HD 5800-series graphics cards that fully support DirectX 11 in the upcoming weeks, Nvidia yet has not disclosed any plans regarding its DX11 GPUs, which means that in the eyes of computer enthusiasts the company is not a technology leader any more.
Read the entire article in
Xbit Labs.
