This white paper from AMD and featured on DesignWorld, is a great introduction for anyone who is in CAD / CAE, DCC, Scientific Visualization, or Medical Imaging but doesn’t really completely understand all of the buzzwords or specs-and-feed language typically espoused by the 3D graphic card vendors. It’s basically a from top to bottom explanation of how 3D graphics work, what makes up a graphics card, what OpenCL, OpenGL and DirectX do, and how to combine GPUs to do even more. It then goes on to give real examples of how various industries benefit from GPU acceleration. Finally it described some of the FirePro advantages (notably ability to handle huge datasets, Eyefinity, reliability, and support).
I was surprised at how informative this video actually is. It shows a complete unboxing and setup for the FirePro V5900 video card with an example of driving 4 displays using Eyefinity, including setup using the Catalyst software.
SolidWorks World 2011 is coming up Jan 23-26 and of course AMD will be there showing off the performance of the FirePro line (Partner Pavilion booth #606).
In advance of the event, the SolidWorks blog folks interviewed Bahman Dara, Senior Manager of Product Marketing for the FirePro workstation graphics line. The key points of that interview:
How can FirePro help make a SolidWorks user’s life easier?
- Improve productivity and reduce design cycles with cards that are engineered, tested and certified to ensure reliability, and exceptional 3D performance.
- AMD Eyefinity technology lets you run up to six monitors at full HD resolution, simultaneously on a single graphics card. Expand your view and multitask with ease.
Check out the Eyefinity video below which is featured in the blog post.
The recent Autodesk ‘See the Advantage’ Virtual Event conference was attended by about 1200 people. AMD’s FirePro team staffed a virtual booth, interacting with participants via chat. Participants could view demos, download information and ask questions of FirePro team members.
The materials and event venue are archived online until Jan 6, 2011 to anyone who registers (registration is free).
There is also a new page up on the AMD site worth checking out specifically for the Autodesk software user.
PC Perspective weighs in on the FirePro V9800 with it’s Eyefinity 6 HD display outpus. As they note, if you are looking at performance only, the Quadro 5000 is a competitor. But the FirePro V9800 is clearly targeting developers and professional user interested in performance plus multi-displays to increase their productivity or even to create new workflow models for their business.
PC Perspective’s conclusion: “If you are in the market for a multi-display card, there is nothing even close to the FirePro V9800 and its 6 DisplayPort outputs except maybe AMD’s own V8800 with four. AMD is hoping to capitalize on that customer need with a solution that can dramatically lower their costs and provide new development and display experiences. “
They also note: “Combining more than one V9800 card is possible using the FirePro S400 card - a small board that is responsible for synchronizing display outputs on multiple graphics cards. Using the S400 a system can support up to four FirePro V9800s (or any other GPU) for a total of 24 outputs in a single PC! While a set of four V9800 cards is going to be expensive ($14,000 or so), that cost is well below any other professional solution that provides that many display configurations.”
IBC demo Stereo 3D compositing using Fusion 6.1 on the FirePro V8800
This demo from IBC 2010 is a lot better in person because when you put on the glasses, you can see the 3D!
In any case, the demo shows eyeon Fusion 6.1 compositing and rendering software, running in real-time for editing a 3D stereo scene using 4 displays running on a single FirePro V8800 graphics card.
The two displays on the side, let you see the individual right and left channels, so you can work on them individually.
The third display, shows the 3D image output via the Stereo output on the FirePro (visible using the passive glasses). And a fourth displays shows additional footage for compositing.
AMD rolled out the ATI FirePro V9800 which features a 4GB GDDR5 frame buffer and six mini DisplayPorts to drive up to six HD displays. AMD is clearly targeting a new market focused on low-cost video walls for design/review, large volume data sets (medical, oil/gas) digital mockups, 4k video compositing, and client presentations. Unlike a multi-card GPU solution, the FirePro using Eyefinity has all memory in the same memory block, so almost any CAD or DDC software offers high performance across all of the displays out of the box (See Develop3D story).
Of course the FirePro V9800 offers full DX11, OpenGL 4.X and OpenCL 1.X support, as well as stereo3D.
Maybe it is a stereotypical guy thing, but how could you not enjoy watching these virtual crash test simulations!
In these two videos Altair Engineering uses the new ATI FirePro V8800 with HyperWorks to simulate virtual crash tests of this Ford Explorer & Taurus in near real-time. The frontal crash simulation vehicles have millions of polygons so this is impressive technically as well as visually!
HyperWorks has been in the HPC news recently for achieving processing breakthroughs to for industries like car companies, developing products that require complex virtual prototype testing to address and improve crashworthiness, consumer safety, reliability and quality.
Altair HyperWorks was also recently optimized and certified for use with the FirePro line.
The certification of FirePro accelerators by software application vendors assures professional engineers, designers and animators that the FirePro line delivers a stable and high performance workstation graphics environment on both Windows and Linux platforms. Certification is one of the big differences between consumer and professional graphics cards. (see video).
Altair Engineering and SpaceClaim are the two latest application ISVs to be certified for the FirePro line
Altair Engineering is one of the key strategic players in engineering simulation CAE and HPC space – they are part of all workflows in the major automotive OEMs in the 3 regions.
SpaceClaim leads the 3D Direct Modeling market by delivering break-through product and technology. The founder of SpaceClaim is the father of Pro/E and SolidWorks: Michael Payne. ANSYS just selected SpaceClaim as their front end modeler.
The ATI FirePro RG220 graphics card is an integrated graphics card that includes display compression and IP transmission. It compresses dual-display graphic data at the host and outputs it over a regular IP network to a remote thin client device.
If you listen past the marketing hype, this video is actually pretty informative, describing how the card works, where it fits in, and who it will benefit. It’s a real cloud computing solution to offer serious graphics power to “thin clients”. Think small, quiet, cool, and secure. Wonder if I could use this for serious graphics on my iPad?
FireUser.com is a community resource for visualization, 3D, video and engineering professionals to learn about the latest acceleration and display technologies, discuss support issues, as well as influence the features and direction of the FireGL and FirePro accelerator line.
