Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) and Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) are battling it out for the VR segment dominance. The two companies have for long gone head-to-head in the provision of graphics drivers. Graphic drivers are critical and both companies are promising improvements, some which that attracted the attention of the press and the end users.
ADM took advantage of the National Association of Broadcasters Show held in Las Vegas to launch their new FirePro W9100 32GB which features six mini DisplayPort 1.2a output. The new 32GB FirePro W9100 is expected to be available this quarter through the company’s usual distribution partners
In a rather aggressive move, AMD and Nvidia are scheduled to announce their next-gen DX12-based Polaris and Pascal GPUs respectively, almost at the same time later this year. Their main focus is the virtual reality (VR) market.
Offlate Analysts after monitoring the companies’ VR adoption arrived at the conclusion that AMD would bow to Nvidia. However, this may not be the case.
ADM’s Polaris pack might have what it need to outshine Nvidia’s Pascal in the VR arena.
Technical Knockout
When it comes to the virtual reality industry, latency and frames per second (fps) are critical factors that come into play. While 30-40 fps with insignificant lag and interruptions may be acceptable on PC gaming, according to Mark, this can result in feeling nausea, headaches and even disorientation if the same is present on the VR headsets. Very high fps figures are necessary if you are to get an immersive and real VR world.
To solve this issue, ADM has equipped their Polaris GPUs with synchronous compute engine for both hardware and software levels. This makes it possible for the GPU to seamlessly process more task at the same time behaving like a CPU which then results in higher fps.
A Haunted past
For some time now, AMD has had to deal with a tainted reputation for their graphic drivers. AMD has some of the fastest graphic cards on the market. However, the experience was not at par with the hype. This is soon expected to change with the new AMD Radeon Technologies Group (RTG) promised drastic improvements in their graphic drivers shipped alongside the graphic cards. These improvements can be seen in the latest generation graphics drivers called Crimsons that comes with a completely new interface and better user experience.
