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Valve Software: Intel's Sandy Bridge Brings "Console Like Experience" to PC.

Game Developer Considers Intel's New Chip A Game Changer

[01/07/2011 01:30 PM]
by Anton Shilov

Chief executive officer of Valve Software, a leading developer of video games that created such titles as Half-Life and Counter Strike, said that Intel Corp.'s new Core i-series "Sandy Bridge" is a game changer for the company and it will redefine the mainstream PC gaming experience forever.

"It is a real game changer for us. This allows for a console like experience on the PC," said Gabe Newell, chief executive of Valve, adding that the forthcoming Portal 2 video game is developed to run on Intel's new chips.

This is by far not the first time when the head of Valve praises hardware companies. Years ago Mr. Newell was a part of ATI Technologies' and Nvidia Corp.'s discrete graphics chips marketing campaigns, nowadays he is on stage with Intel to promote relatively fast, yet morally outdated integrated graphics processor.

Intel's new G3000-series graphics processor features twelve stream processors (which Intel calls execution units) at up to 1350MHz (in TurboBoost Mode) that provide performance level comparable to entry-level discrete graphics processing units, such as ATI Radeon HD 5400-series solution. Unfortunately, the Intel HD Graphics 3000-series core only support DirectX 10.1 and OpenGL 3 capabilities, whereas all modern graphics processors support DirectX 10.1, OpenGL 4, OpenCL 1 and various GPGPU technologies.

While it is clear that the vast majority of modern games rely on DirectX 9 application programming interface (API) since its feature-set is present on Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony PlayStation 3 video game systems, leading game designers still indicate their commitment to modern technologies like DirectX 11. By contrast, Mr. Newell admits that Valve's forthcoming title will be aimed at a DirectX 10.1-class integrated graphics, a rather unprecedented move for a game designer. While Portal 2 is definitely not a leading-edge title, it is expected from a PC game developer to promote leading-edge technologies, not a graphics core that sports features from 2007.

It is noteworthy that according to Valve's own hardware survey only 6.2% of PC gamers use graphics solutions from Intel, whereas about 92% utilize discrete and integrated graphics based on ATI Radeon and Nvidia GeForce technologies.

Tags: Intel, Valve Software, Valve, 32nm, Portal

Discussion

Comments currently: 9
Discussion started: 01/07/11 02:31:51 PM
Latest comment: 01/11/11 10:58:50 AM
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[1-7]

Since when does PlayStation 3 have a DirectX 9 API?

0 [Posted by: masteryoda34 Rating 1

| Date: 01/07/11 02:31:51 PM]

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Sony PS3 has a DX9-class graphics processor. Neither PS3 nor X360 support a DX API.

1 [Posted by: Anton

| Date: 01/07/11 03:05:00 PM]

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- collapse thread

PS3 and Xbox360 "Xenos" chip are functional equivalents to DX9.0c capable GPUs. They couldnt be consider so called DX9-class chips as they dont share same API with DX neither same cross API beween each other, as you properly stated.
DX9.0 was more colorfull API overall with huge differences between DX9.0/b and DX9.0c which shares more resemblance to DX10, especially nVidias dx10 implementation than to it's homonymic dx9 predecessor.

0 [Posted by: OmegaHuman Rating 338.1

| Date: 01/09/11 12:17:34 AM]

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Game changer?
Does this mean we can expect even more crap console ports now that they have an excuse?
Hope they don't forget the other 92% of us who help these companies profit by shelling out our hard earned dollars for the lastest tech.
It's the early adopters who spend the big dollars that helps the industry bring these prices down for the rest of the masses,
Stop giving us crap ports and give us more games that take advantage of the latest hardware, And while your at it cut back on the damn cores and give us some more speed!

1 [Posted by: ozegamer Rating 62.42

| Date: 01/07/11 07:14:17 PM]

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- collapse thread

ofc. we'll see even larger publishers rush for gold with inflated retardo games. You'd be surprised how many people like to pay for this kind of bragging rights that they now can play something they played on fiveyearold xbox360

1 [Posted by: OmegaHuman Rating 338.1

| Date: 01/09/11 12:21:16 AM]

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Game changer for what? LOL. I love how the importence of Direct X is soo greatly over-hyped on low end grahpics cards. Modern low-end graphics cards can't really utilize DirectX 10 let alone DirectX 11. What good is it to mark the importence of a low end graphics card with DirectX 11 when it will never really be able utilize it anyhow. In order to start to ultilize DirectX 11 or DirectX 10 for that matter you need to have a decent graphics card in which the G3000 is by no means decent when it comes to real gaming.

1 [Posted by: SteelCity1981 Rating 441.88

| Date: 01/07/11 08:50:25 PM]

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Meh. They should be worried about rise of tablets and ARM architecture.

0 [Posted by: zaratustra06 Rating 53

| Date: 01/08/11 12:50:24 AM]

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Sony PS3 runs on OpenGL ES and XBOX 360 uses a DX9-based DX API.

As for console experience, I don't mind console ports as long as they are done right like Batman: Arkham Asylum and most of Capcom's games.

As for game changer, I don't see any. Most gamers don't run on IGPs anyways, except for some people. So this news story is quite pointless.

0 [Posted by: deltatux Rating 29

| Date: 01/08/11 05:55:03 PM]

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Morally outdated? What does that mean, besides you don't know English and are trying to get creative? What a bizarre and totally inappropriate choice of words. Since when is a GPU moral or immoral? Very, very weird.

0 [Posted by: TA152H Rating 60.81

| Date: 01/11/11 10:58:50 AM]

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