Sam Oliver
In support of Mac gaming
Speaking to bi-tech.net last week, NVIDIA General Manager for Notebook GPUs confirmed that his firm would proactively leverage its The Way It’s Meant To Be Played program to encourage developers to release more titles for Mac. He said NVIDIA would also push for cross-platform developers to schedule their Mac gaming releases much closer to their PC counterparts.
The Way It's Meant To Be Played, or TWIMTBP, is a five year-old program that helps game makers with game development and incorporating exclusive features that take advantage of the latest GeForce video cards. Developers who participate in the program are provide extensive guidelines on game performance optimizations and often co-brand their titles with a TWIMTBP splash screens.
New chipsets for desktops
On Monday, NVIDIA said its engineering team was presented with a challenge from an unnamed party, to "deliver a desktop GPU which integrates full system I/O and discrete-level performance in one-half the size of previous integrated graphics solutions."
The result is a new pair of GeForce 9400 and 9300 motherboard GPUs for desktop PCs running Intel processors. The 16-core CUDA-capable graphics architectures provide high-quality video playback with NVIDIA PureVideo HD technology, support for Hybrid SLI technology, and support for advanced audio and video connectivity, such as uncompressed LPCM 7.1 audio, dual-link DVI, and HDMI.
“We’ve combined the power of three different chips into one highly compact and efficient GPU,†said Drew Henry, general manager of MCP business unit at NVIDIA. “In doing so, we’ve redefined the level of performance people can expect from a motherboard solution to enrich visual computing experiences for mainstream systems. You can now have the performance of a discrete GPU in a small form factor PC.â€
NVIDIA says the single-chip design has a much smaller footprint than competing chipsets, making it ideal for small form factor and ultra-slim media center PCs. Motherboards featuring the GeForce 9-Series are shipping this month from several motherboard vendors, the chipmaker said. A photo of a GeForce 9-equipped ASUS motherboard can be seen below.
As would be expected, NVIDIA made no mention of Apple while announcing the new desktop chipsets, but is likely to be working with the Mac maker on new graphics solutions for a refreshed line of iMacs due shortly.
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43 Comments
...who wants a 9300 graphics chip in a desktop when even the cheapest and thinnest notebooks have the 9400?
I guess the imac needs a 9600 to become a gaming machine
It would be nice to have more games. Back when PC dominated gaming, making a Mac version was a big deal. But now there are so many platforms (consoles, handhelds) that adding one more should be easier than in past. I mean, they must be writing more of their code to be platform independent than they used to. That is the hope anyway.
They wanted it to fit in the Mini!
...who wants a 9300 graphics chip in a desktop when even the cheapest and thinnest notebooks have the 9400?
I guess the imac needs a 9600 to become a gaming machine
I'm not well versed in this, but I'm pretty sure the notebooks have the 9400M, with an M for Mobile, which Steve illustrated last week doesn't surpass the 8000 desktop series that's currently in the iMacs.
Separately, the chipmaker has just announced similar GeForce 9400 and 9300 chipsets for desktop CPUs, which could find their way into new iMacs.
Seeing that all Intel iMacs to date seem to have used mobile Intel CPUs, unless Apple decides to switch to desktop CPUs, they won't be using the desktop versions of the Geforce 9400. I don't actually think that Apple will won't to sole source on nVidia. Even if they go with the mobile 9400M in the iMac they'll probably stick to ATI GPUs.
nVidia was always quoting Apple's implementation of the 9400M to be different than what nVidia will be selling to other OEMs. And nVidia confirms that Apple's implementation doesn't support Hybrid SLI. I have a feeling that what makes Apple's implementation unique is that they dropped Hybrid SLI in exchange for making the dynamic integrated to discrete GPU switching technology work with any GPU so that they can stick with the 9400M to satisfy nVidia but can choose to use either ATI or nVidia discrete GPUs.
...who wants a 9300 graphics chip in a desktop when even the cheapest and thinnest notebooks have the 9400?
I guess the imac needs a 9600 to become a gaming machine
I guess you never used an iMac before for play. I use my iMac for play CoD4, Comand & Conquers and CMR. I pwned so many PC dudes over CoD4 and my iMac has only 4gb ram and the Ati card with 256 mb.
Also that GPU could be used on a Mac Mini with great success. I guess that a lot of people will be happy with that potential.