Sharky passed along a press release from
Metabyte with an announcement that confirms the scoop he posted earlier in the week about
future support for using any video chipset in parallel operation, which can provide
increased framerates and resolutions. Here's a couple of quotes that cover all the bases:
This technology will allow Metabyte to run graphics cards in a parallel
configuration using any existing chip on the market. It will also have the capability to
be applied to any future chipset that comes to market. Specifically, the application of
this technology to an existing 2D/3D chip set will yield a 40+ percent increase in
performance and will double megapixel per second fill rate of a dual card configuration
over a single card. A white paper outlining the benefits of this technology in more detail
can be found at http://www.wicked3d.com.
The implementation of this Wicked3D driver technology requires very minor modifications to
existing hardware. The process of rendering images from two sources will separate the
images being rendered into sections. The driver then sends the render information to the
appropriate board so that rendering occurs in parallel on the two boards. Such rendering
is still the biggest performance bottleneck performance with current graphics hardware
especially at high resolution so this approach provides a big win.
Wicked3D is reviewing which chipsets would best be supported by this technology in the
high-end consumer graphics market, and will be making announcements shortly regarding
products that will be using the Wicked3D technology. The company is targeting an
aggressive retail launch for this technology.