New graphics chips from an established domestic manufacturer are raising eyebrows as gamers look at choices for modern laptops.
This morning, Devindra Hardawar at Engadget talks about NVIDIA RTX 3050 and 3050 TI options new for GPU installation in a range of affordable laptop computers.
These chips, BB says, can support 80 FPS in 1080 pixels, or 95 FPS with DLSS, which is a neural network design intended to boost graphics rendering capabilities.
“NVIDIA DLSS is a new and improved deep learning neural network that boosts frame rates and generates beautiful, sharp images for your games,” write NVIDIA spokespersons in corporate literature. “It gives you the performance headroom to maximize ray tracing settings and increase output resolution. DLSS is powered by dedicated AI processors on RTX GPUs called Tensor Cores.”
Another big driver of enhanced productivity with these chips is their ability to facilitate a process called ray tracing, which is part of what you see when you look at cutting-edge computer animated graphics in 3D.
“Look at a mug,” writes Jie Yee Ong at MakeUseOf, using the analogy to describe how ray tracing works in graphics rendering. “When you look at the mug, light bounces off the mug directly into your eye, and your brain understands the object sitting in front of you is a mug. Now, from the mug, move your eyes to find the light source in your room. That is ray tracing. In 3D video games that we have now, the ray tracing algorithm starts with the player’s point of view and sets out to ‘trace,’ identify, and map out the light, colors, and shadows of multiple objects on a screen. As a result, graphics produced via ray tracing are smoother around the edges and more realistic.”
As for the specs on these microprocessors, the 3050 and 3050 TI feature 2048 and 2560 CUDA cores, as well as four gigs of RAM and 128-bit memory.
Amid ongoing chip scarcity, it may be reassuring to gamers or those with gaming investments that these types of specialized GPUs are still in the pipeline. Is it a sign that global demand squeeze for silicon products is diminishing?
