NVIDIA Tegra 3 open source code gets early 3D support

<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;" trbidi="on"><div class="copy post-body" dir="ltr" itemprop="text" style="text-align: left;"> <div class="image-container" style="text-align: center;"> <img alt="NVIDIA Tegra 3 open source drivers add 3D support" data-src-height="340" data-src-width="620" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2013/04/nvidia-tegra-3-chip.jpg" /></div>It's a given that NVIDIA's Tegra 3 can handle 3D -- unless you've been crafting a fully open source project around the chip, at which point you've been stuck in a flat world. Fresh contributions from Avionic Design's Thierry Reding have brought that extra dimension back, albeit in limited form. His early patches for the Linux kernel enable support for 3D when using the Tegra Direct Rendering Manager driver. There's also a matching Gallium3D driver for us regular users, although it's still young: it can run reference 3D code as of a recent check, but can't produce visible imagery. While it may take some months before everything falls into place, the officially-backed work should make the (slightly aging) chip that much more useful beyond the realms of Android and Windows RT.<br /> </div></div>

NVIDIA Tegra 3 open source code gets early 3D support

It's a given that NVIDIA's Tegra 3 can handle 3D -- unless you've been crafting a fully open source project around the chip,...

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NVIDIA details how its Jetson development kit creates smart, seeing cars

<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;" trbidi="on"><div class="copy post-body" dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> <div class="image-container" style="text-align: center;"> <img alt="NVIDIA details how its Jetson development kit puts a Tegra in your car" data-src-height="340" data-src-width="620" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2013/03/nvidia-jetson.jpg" /></div>Developing a high-end in-car infotainment system can present challenges that don't exist in other platforms -- you're juggling core car systems, a myriad of sensors and media playback in a testbed on wheels. NVIDIA has just explained how it's uniting those elements with its new, lengthily-titled Jetson Automotive Development Platform. While it looks like a single-DIN car stereo laid bare, the configurable kit incorporates a Tegra processor (for usual infotainment functions), multiple car-friendly interfaces and a Kepler-based graphics chipset that can power car detection, lane departure and other computer vision systems by using CUDA or OpenCV code. The net effect should be a much simpler development process: automakers can consolidate some of their test hardware in one Jetson unit that they can upgrade or swap out if newer technology comes along. NVIDIA isn't naming the handful of designers and suppliers that are already building car electronics using Jetson, although history offers a few possible candidates.<br /> </div></div>

NVIDIA details how its Jetson development kit creates smart, seeing cars

Developing a high-end in-car infotainment system can present challenges that don't exist in other platforms -- you're juggling c...

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NVIDIA Tegra 4i Phoenix reference phone hands-on (video)

<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;" trbidi="on"><div dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;" trbidi="on"><hr dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" /><div class="image-container" dir="ltr" style="text-align: center;"><img alt="NVIDIA Tegra 4i Phoenix reference phone handson video" data-src-height="411" data-src-width="619" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2013/02/dsc04335.jpg" /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;">NVIDIA's latest venture in the mobile world, called the 4i, was introduced last week ahead of Mobile World Congress, and fortunately the chipset maker brought the product to Barcelona embedded in a reference phone known as "Phoenix." The 8mm-thick handset, which will find a home in the labs of manufacturers and carriers (as well as the desks of many third-party devs), sports a 5-inch 1080p display, 13MP rear-facing camera, PRISM 2, Chimera, DirectTouch and LTE (we're told that most major bands are included for testing purposes). As it's not geared for general consumer use, so it's not the thinnest, sleekest or best-looking device, and the back doesn't even seem to snap completely shut. Units are being sampled as we speak, and we should expect to see devices hit the market in nine to twelve months. Since it's still pretty early in the process, we weren't able to turn on the phone or benchmark the chipset; the only exception to this rule, as you'll see in the video, was when a rep showed a gaming demo on his particular unit.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;">While the 4i is the smaller brother of the Tegra 4 family, it's still expected to be quite powerful. The chip, which is designed specifically for smartphones (tablets will take advantage of Tegra 4 instead), features four 28nm Cortex-A9 r4 (beefed-up from the standard A9) cores that can be clocked up to 2.3GHz, 60 GPU cores (compared to 72 on the T4) and an integrated i500 LTE baseband modem. For additional comparison, NVIDIA showed us the two sibling boards side-by-side. Head below to check out our galleries of Phoenix and the two chipsets, as well as a brief video that shows off the graphics prowess of the 4i.</div></div><iframe frameborder="0" height="349" id="viddler-4cdcdeb4" mozallowfullscreen="true" src="//www.viddler.com/embed/4cdcdeb4/?f=1&offset=0&autoplay=0&secret=43595935&disablebranding=0&view_secret=43595935" webkitallowfullscreen="true" width="545"></iframe></div>

NVIDIA Tegra 4i Phoenix reference phone hands-on (video)

NVIDIA's latest venture in the mobile world, called the 4i, was introduced last week ahead of Mobile World Congress, and fortunately th...

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NVIDIA Tegra 4 benchmarked, breaks all sorts of speed records

<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;" trbidi="on"><div class="image-container" dir="ltr" style="text-align: center;"> <img alt="NVIDIA Tegra 4 benchmarked, breaks all sorts of speed records video" data-src-height="412" data-src-width="546" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2013/02/dsc05202-1361706877.jpg" /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> When NVIDIA unveiled Tegra 4 back at CES, we scrambled to get hands-on with a reference device. And though our initial performance impressions were positive -- it runs 1080p video and games smoothly -- there was only so much we could say to illustrate how fast the performance is. After all, Tegra 3 already does a fine job handling games and full HD movies. What we <em>really</em> needed were benchmarks, some quantitative data to help show the difference between Tegra 4 devices and whatever's currently on the market. Fortunately for all of you, we just got our chance: here at Mobile World Congress, the company has reference tablets set up expressly for the purpose of running tests. So, we did just that... over and over and over until we had a long list of scores. Meet us after the break to see how it fared.</div><table class="table table-striped" dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> <thead><tr> <th style="text-align: left;"> </th> <th style="text-align: left;"> Tegra 4 reference tablet</th> <th style="text-align: left;"> Sony Xperia Tablet S (Tegra 3)</th> <th style="text-align: left;"> ASUS Transformer Pad Infinity (Tegra 3)</th> </tr></thead> <tbody><tr> <td> <strong>Quadrant (v2)</strong></td> <td> 16,436</td> <td> 4,349</td> <td> 4,685</td> </tr><tr> <td> <strong>AnTuTu </strong></td> <td> 36,305</td> <td> 11,301<br /> </td> <td> 12,027</td> </tr><tr> <td> <strong>SunSpider 0.9.1 (ms)</strong></td> <td> 499</td> <td> 1,608<br /> </td> <td> 2,012</td> </tr><tr> <td> <strong>CF-Bench</strong></td> <td> 41,325</td> <td> 12,625</td> <td> 7,874</td> </tr><tr> <td colspan="4"> <small>SunSpider: lower scores are better</small></td> </tr></tbody></table><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> As you can see, those numbers are pretty impressive, but before we go any further, we feel compelled to offer a little disclaimer. Ideally, we would have had some of our older Tegra 3 review units with us here in Spain -- you know, the Sony Xperia Tablet S, the ASUS Transformer Pad Infinity, maybe even the Acer Iconia A700. Basically, other 10-inch Android tablets with quad-core processors. Unfortunately, we didn't have them on hand, so we couldn't re-run the benchmarks on those devices with the latest software installed. That would have made for the best comparison, and we plan to do just that when we eventually start reviewing some Tegra 4 products.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> Still. C'mon. Just <em>look</em> at those benchmark scores. Even if we were to repeat all of our benchmark tests on those older tablets, we're pretty sure a software upgrade would not be enough to help these older tablets match Tegra 4, or even come close. Quadrant scores in the 16,000s? CF-Bench results in the 40,000 range? All unheard of.</div><blockquote class="quote right" dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> Just <em>look</em> at those benchmark scores.</blockquote><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> Particularly stunning was that SunSpider result, which should give you a strong idea of what you can expect in terms of web browsing performance. In short, the tablet chewed through all that code in just 499ms (keep in mind that lower numbers are better in this particular test). To give you some perspective, the iPad 4 scores an average of 865ms in the test. So if you enjoy the web browsing experience on your iPad, you're going to be pretty pleased what NVIDIA has to offer here. Put differently, when we ran SunSpider on a laptop, the desktop version of Chrome achieved a score of 188.8ms -- we're used to seeing a much bigger gap between desktop and mobile browsers.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> In addition to letting us benchmark our hearts out, NVIDIA showed us a demo of that same reference tablet hooked up to the same sort of power meter OEMs use to measure power consumption. As you can see in the video below, we've got a 1080p video running, with the power rating hovering around 950 milliwatts, compared to 1.2 watts on some other 1080p devices. The result, says Matt Wuebbling, director of Tegra product marketing, is an extra two hours of battery life compared to the competition. Of course, we can't take his word for it -- we'll just have to wait until we get our first Tegra 4 phone in to review. If nothing else, though, that clip below gives you another chance to see how Tegra 4 handles full HD movies. Take 'er away, and stay tuned for some proper reviews -- hopefully in the not-too-distant future.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> <strong>Update</strong>: We decided to remove Tegra 4's GLBench score (57 fps) from the comparison table because the older tablets listed there were benchmarked using a different version of that test. Suffice to say, though, NVIDIA says a score of 57 fps in that benchmark is typical for a Tegra 4 device.</div></div>

NVIDIA Tegra 4 benchmarked, breaks all sorts of speed records

When NVIDIA unveiled Tegra 4 back at CES, we scrambled to get hands-on with a reference device. And though our initial performance impres...

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