Gaming Tech to Watch in 2009
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Monday, 23 February 2009 06:30

Windows 7

There's a very good chance Windows 7 is going to hit this year – Microsoft seems determined on pushing it to market, and it's already in public beta. What will this mean for gaming? Well, that remains to be seen, but Microsoft seem to be aware of the general disdain for Vista amongst gamers, and are aiming for an OS that's progressive without sacrificing performance and compatibility. A few sites have already done 3D Mark and in-game performance testing on the beta, and while the results waver a little – and are far from definitive – they're encouraging... at least in comparison to Vista. Will we finally have a new OS that's great for gaming and user friendly? Hopefully by the end of 2009.

Windows 7... it's no 3.1.

The Prognosis: Windows 7 won't be earth-shattering, but it may be good enough to encourage the legions of gamers still using XP that it's time to upgrade.


Assorted PC Tech
As always in the world of PCs, 2009 will see the hardware arms race continue, with manufacturers like Intel, AMD and Nvidia fighting for supremacy. A few of the key releases likely this year:

  • Intel's Larrabee: This 48-core GPU from Intel is something of a CPU/GPU hybrid, and is designed to compete directly with Nvidia and ATI's GeForce and Radeon offerings. It has a few things in common with the Core processor in the PS3 – namely, using a heap of relatively simple cores all working together. Thankfully, it's designed to be far easier to program for. There's plenty of info online about it. Will it hit before 2010? There's a good chance.


  • DirectX 11 is coming, and unlike the underwhelming DirectX 10, it promises to bring a slew of improvements, not least of which is better multi-threading support in games. The first video cards that support DirectX 11 could ship by the end of 2009.


  • PhysX Comes of Age: The PhysX middleware has been around for years now, as have standalone cards designed to maximise it, but now that Nvidia is enabling its CUDA-based GPUs with PhysX technology, it'll all be in the one package. More and more involved physics simulations are one of the biggest trends in gaming, so integrating proper hardware acceleration into GPUs is a great step forward. (You can read more on Nvidia's plans for Physx here.)


  • New CPUs from Intel and AMD: This is, of course, a no-brainer, but it doesn't mean these aren't technologies to watch. Both companies have released new processors recently – Intel releasing its first Nehalem (Core i7) CPUs and AMD finally moving to a 45nm manufacturing process for its Shanghai CPUs. This year Intel will follow up with 32nm CPUs – called Westmere, which will be based on Nehalem, only with the advantages that a 32nm manufacturing process will bring. AMD, on the other hand, will be bring its new 6-core Istanbul CPU to market.

Most PC nerds are actually a lot fatter than this.


The Prognosis: PC technology is always worth watching because – unlike consoles – it represents near constant strides forwards, and always leapfrogs console technology within a year or two of a console's release. And of course, this is where future console tech is birthed too.

Article found at IGN.com

 
Last Updated on Monday, 23 February 2009 06:46