Posts in category: nVidia AI

GFN Thursday rolls up this week with a hot new deal for a GeForce NOW six-month Priority membership.

Enjoy the cloud gaming service with seven new games to stream this week, including more favorites from Bandai Namco Europe and F1 2021 from Electronic Arts.

Make Gaming a Priority 

Starting today, GeForce NOW is offering a limited-time discount sure to spark up gamers looking to skip the wait and jump right into their games. Through Sunday, May 21, get 40% off a six-month Priority membership for $29.99, normally $49.99.

It’s perfect for those looking to try out GeForce NOW or lock in a lower price for another half-year with one of GeForce NOW’s premium membership tiers.

Priority members get higher access to GeForce gaming servers, meaning less wait times than free members, as well as gaming sessions extended up to six hours. Priority members can also stream across multiple devices with beautifully ray-traced graphics with RTX ON for supported games.

With new games added weekly and other top titles on the way, gamers won’t want to miss out on this hot deal. Sign up now or power up devices even further with an Ultimate membership, GeForce NOW’s highest performance tier.

The Dark Side of the Cloud

Carve out time this month for The Dark Pictures Anthology series from Bandai Namco Europe, with support for ray tracing to bring a realistic tinge of spine-tingling horror to the cloud.

Each entry of the popular series features interactive horror stories with unique characters and plots. Choose what happens in each adventure while discovering branching narratives and multiple endings.

The first game in the series, Man of Medan, follows a group of young adults stranded on a ghost ship haunted by malevolent spirits. Little Hope, next in the series, features a group of college students and their professor who must escape a cursed New England town haunted by witches.

House of Ashes, the series’ third installment, features war soldiers who unknowingly awaken an ancient evil force when they stumble across an underground temple. The Devil in Me, set in a replica of a real-life serial killer’s “Murder Castle,” follows a documentary film crew as they set out to capture footage of the hotel, only to find their lives at grave risk.

With more Bandai Namco titles joining the cloud this week, it’ll be easy as pie to start a marathon for The Dark Pictures Anthology series, if you dare.

Take a Victory Lap 

Jump into the seat of a Formula One driver in F1 2021 from Electronic Arts. Every story has its beginning, and members can start theirs with the Braking Point story mode, a thrilling experience with on-track competition and off-track drama.

Take on the Formula One world and go head to head against official teams and drivers in “Career Mode,” solo or with a buddy. Or, put the pedal to the metal with “Real-Season Start” mode to redo the F1 2021 season as desired, if Max Verstappen didn’t happen to be your winner of choice. There’s plenty of content with other gaming modes, including “My Team” and online multiplayer.

F1 2021 is fueled up with RTX ON for Ultimate and Priority members — the ultrarealistic game play will have players feeling as if they’re racing directly from the track.

Blazing-Hot New Games

Sit back and relax with new games and a demo joining the cloud this week. Start with Monster Hunter Rise — first-time hunters can try it out for free with a demo of the game and its expansion, Sunbreak, available now to all GeForce NOW members.

Plus, the highly anticipated first-person action role-playing game Dead Island 2 launches in the cloud this week. In this sequel to the popular game Dead Island from Deep Silver, horror and dark humor mix well throughout the zombie-slaying adventure set in Los Angeles. Play solo if you dare, or with some buddies.

GFN Thursday keeps on rolling with seven hot new games available to stream this week:

• Survival: Fountain of Youth (New release on Steam, April 19)
• Dead Island 2 (New release on Epic Games Store, April 21)
• F1 2021 (Steam)
• The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan (Steam)
• The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope (Steam)
• The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes (Steam)
• The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil in Me (Steam)

That wraps up another GFN Thursday. Let us know how you’re making gaming a priority this weekend in the comments below, or on the GeForce NOW Facebook and Twitter channels.

Make your cloud gaming a 𝙥𝙧𝙞𝙤𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙮 tomorrow.

— NVIDIA GeForce NOW (@NVIDIAGFN) April 19, 2023

NVIDIA today recognized a dozen partners for their work helping customers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa harness the power of AI across industries.

At a virtual EMEA Partner Day event, which was hosted by the NVIDIA Partner Network (NPN) and drew more than 750 registrants, Partner of the Year awards were given to companies working with NVIDIA to lead AI education and adoption across the region. The winners are transforming how their customers tap AI to improve data centers, manufacturing, sales and marketing workflows and more.

“NVIDIA partners have been at the forefront of technological advances and incredible business opportunities emerging across EMEA, using innovative NVIDIA solutions to help customers reduce costs, increase efficiency and solve their greatest challenges,” said Alfred Manhart, vice president of the EMEA channel at NVIDIA. “With the EMEA NPN Partner of the Year awards, we honor those who play a critical role in the success of our business as they apply their knowledge and expertise to deliver transformative solutions across a range of industries.”

The 2023 NPN award winners for EMEA are:

Central Europe

• THINK ABOUT IT, Germany — Rising Star Partner of the Year. Recognized for driving exceptional revenue growth of close to 100% across the complete NVIDIA portfolio. Throughout four years of working with NVIDIA, the IT services company has become a cornerstone of the NVIDIA partner landscape in Germany.
• Delta Computer Reinbek, Germany — Star Performer Partner of the Year. Recognized for outstanding sales achievement and customer relations, deploying NVIDIA high performance computing, machine learning, deep learning and AI solutions to enterprise, industry and higher education and research institutes throughout Germany.
• MEGWARE Computer, Germany — Go-to-Market Excellence Partner of the Year. Recognized for its broad NVIDIA H100 marketing campaign, using its own benchmark center to increase awareness and generate leads.

Northern Europe

• AMAX, Ireland — Rising Star Partner of the Year. Recognized for its significant commitment to helping customers meet their AI and HPC goals, and aligning with members of the NVIDIA Inception program for startups to create new opportunities within the enterprise and automotive sectors.
• Boston Ltd., U.K. — Star Performer Partner of the Year. Recognized for exceptional execution across business areas and implementation of a full-stack approach to deliver complex solutions built on NVIDIA technologies, which have led Boston Ltd. to achieve record revenues.
• Scan Computers International Ltd., U.K. — Go-to-Market Excellence Partner of the Year. Recognized for designing and delivering several successful marketing campaigns comprising high-quality digital content and a comprehensive user-experience strategy, resulting in a strong return on investment.

Southern Europe and Middle East

• Computacenter, France — Rising Star Partner of the Year. Recognized for its fast growth across solution areas, addition of many new customers and close engagement with NVIDIA to drive significant revenue growth.
• MBUZZ, United Arab Emirates — Star Performer Partner of the Year. Recognized for its dedication to increasing the adoption of NVIDIA technologies throughout the Middle East, growing revenue in areas ranging from HPC to visualization and achieving 100% annual growth.

• Azken Muga, Spain — Go-to-Market Excellence Partner of the Year. Recognized for outstanding marketing performance, alignment with NVIDIA’s strategic goals and consistent investment in high-impact, high-quality marketing campaigns with a focus on the NVIDIA DGX platform.

Distribution Partners

• PNY Technologies Europe — Distributor of the Year. Recognized for the second consecutive year for providing NVIDIA accelerated computing platforms and software to vertical markets — including media and entertainment, healthcare and cloud data center — as well as its commitment to delivering significant year-on-year sales growth.
• TD Synnex — Networking Distributor of the Year. Recognized for its dedication toward, expertise in and understanding of both NVIDIA technologies and customers’ business needs, as well as its commitment to partner outreach and consistent reseller support.

Outstanding Impact

• SoftServe — Outstanding Impact Award. Recognized for its commitment to innovating and collaborating with NVIDIA at all levels. SoftServe has dedicated significant time and resources to creating a practice based on the NVIDIA Omniverse platform for building and operating metaverse applications — building industry-specific showcases, developing dedicated Omniverse labs and training, and enabling thousands of its employees to tap NVIDIA solutions.

“It’s an honor for SoftServe to be recognized as the NPN Outstanding Impact Partner of the Year, an award that demonstrates the importance of collaborating with strong partners like NVIDIA to solve complex challenges using cutting-edge technologies,” said Volodymyr Semenyshyn, president of EMEA at SoftServe. “SoftServe is fully dedicated to advancing our vision of accelerated computing by combining NVIDIA’s trailblazing technologies with our strong industry expertise to deliver leading IT solutions and services that empower our customers.”

This year’s awards arrive as AI adoption is rapidly expanding across industries, unlocking new opportunities and accelerating discovery in healthcare, finance, business services and more. As AI models become more complex, the 2023 NPN Award winners are expert partners that can help enterprises develop and deploy AI in production using the infrastructure that best aligns with their operations.

Learn how to join the NPN, or find your local NPN partner.

Shanghai is once again showing why it’s called the “Magic City” as more than 1,000 exhibitors from 20 countries dazzle the automotive world this week at the highly anticipated International Automobile Industry Exhibition.

With nearly 1,500 vehicles on display, the 20th edition of Auto Shanghai is showcasing the newest AI-powered cars and mobility solutions using the NVIDIA DRIVE Hyperion compute platform built on the DRIVE Orin system-on-chip (SoC).

NVIDIA-Powered Vehicles in China and Beyond

SAIC Motor’s Rising Auto brand unveiled the recently launched mid-to-large luxury pure electric sedan F7 and mid-to-large luxury pure electric SUV R7 at the show, both of which feature an advanced intelligent-driving system built on NVIDIA DRIVE Orin. Equipped with a swappable battery pack, the F7 is built to go the distance with up to a 413-mile range.

New energy vehicle (NEV) maker GAC AION showcased its flagship model Hyper GT, which is available for pre-sale. Equipped with the high-performance NVIDIA DRIVE Orin SoC, the car is designed to support advanced level 2+ driving capabilities in high-speed environments. Featuring an array of aerodynamic features that minimize drag, the Hyper GT has a wind resistance coefficient of just 0.19 Cd, the lowest of any production car in the world, GAC Aion claims.

At the show, EV maker XPENG showcased its full range of models including the all-new P7i ultra-smart coupe and XPENG G9, a super-fast-charging, intelligent SUV, built on the high-performance DRIVE Orin centralized compute architecture to deliver AI capabilities that are continuously upgradable through over-the-air updates.

XPENG also debuted the first model under its SEPA 2.0 Soaring architecture — the XPENG G6 — also powered by NVIDIA DRIVE Orin. As an intelligent driving coupe SUV, the XPENG G6 is based on a high-voltage 800V silicon carbide platform that XPENG launched globally, and is also equipped with its proprietary XNGP intelligent assisted driving system.

Elsewhere on the show floor, IM Motors, a joint venture among China’s SAIC Motor, Alibaba and Shanghai’s Zhangjiang Group, exhibited its flagship LS7 SUV and the L7 sedan powered by NVIDIA DRIVE Orin. IM Motors reports that it has launched its capability for highway navigation on autopilot — users will be able to experience it on the L7 and LS7 soon.

NEV maker Human Horizons officially took the wraps off its HiPhi Y SUV, the latest addition to its lineup of intelligent vehicles. The vehicle’s marquee features include a wing-door design, a China light-duty vehicle test cycle (CLTC) range of more than 497 miles on a single charge, and an autonomous-driving system powered by DRIVE Orin.

This is the second model stemming from HiPhi’s cooperation with NVIDIA. The NEV company last summer launched HiPhi Z, the digital grand tourer equipped with the HiPhi Pilot intelligent driver-assistance system. The system features NVIDIA DRIVE Orin and a 30+ sensor suite to support functions such as assisted driving.

As China NEV makers look to expand their global footprint, HiPhi also announced it will bring its vehicles to select countries in Western Europe and Scandinavia. This includes HiPhi X, HiPhi Z and HiPhi Y.

Premium smart electric vehicle company NIO revealed the ES6 SUV during Auto Shanghai. NIO’s family of smart vehicles are being showcased at the NIO booth, including an updated version of its ET7, along with the ES8, EC7, ES7, ES6 and ET5. All these vehicles run on its proprietary Adam supercomputer, which is powered by four NVIDIA DRIVE Orin SoCs. This quad configuration delivers 1,016 TOPS of performance to enable advanced driver-assistance systems and a point-to-point autonomous driving experience.

NIO also recently announced it’s equipping its third-generation powerswap station with two laser radars and two NVIDIA DRIVE Orin SoCs, with a total computing power of 508 TOPS, which enables the Automatic Summon and Swap feature, which enables the station to communicate with the vehicle and automatically navigate the vehicle for a battery swap.

Li Auto displayed three of its flagship models, including the L9, L8 Max and L7 Max. These models feature dual NVIDIA DRIVE Orin SoCs to power its intelligent-driving system, the Ideal AD Max, delivering 508 TOPS of computing power to help the vehicle efficiently process data from high-definition cameras, lidars, millimeter-wave radars and ultrasonic sensors in real time.

Li Auto also released an 800V supercharged pure electric solution, which can travel 248 miles after charging for 10 minutes. The automaker demonstrated AD Max 3.0, which is also powered by NVIDIA DRIVE Orin. The company’s urban NOA navigation assisted-driving system will be released in the second quarter of this year. And by the end of the year, this all-scenario navigation-assisted driving system will cover 100 cities in China.

Swedish premium automaker Volvo Cars debuted its all-electric EX90 in China. Revealed in November last year, the state-of-the-art, software-defined SUV features a new powertrain and cutting-edge technology to deliver the ultimate in safety and intelligence with the AI compute of NVIDIA DRIVE Orin and Xavier platforms.

During its Volvo Cars Tech Day held earlier this week, the automaker also unveiled its EX90 Excellence, the top-of-the-line and limited edition of the EX90. The four-seater SUV features a two-tone exterior, outstanding comfort inside and an intelligent technology base powered by NVIDIA DRIVE.

Lotus brought its three champion products to the Auto Shanghai, including the first electric Hyper-SUV Lotus Eletre, the first pure electric hypercar Evija and Emira, the last internal combustion engine sports car from Lotus. The Lotus Eletre is equipped with the cockpit-forward design inspired by Evija and embodies the essence of aesthetics. It features an immersive digital cockpit, long battery range of the Eletre S+ version up to 403 miles and autonomous-driving capabilities powered by the NVIDIA DRIVE Orin.

Tier-1 Manufacturers, Emerging Mobility Companies Also Spotlighted

Tier-1 suppliers for the auto industry and emerging self-driving companies also presented their latest offerings at Auto Shanghai.

Desay SV is pushing the boundaries of autonomous-driving performance with its latest solutions for smart cockpit, intelligent driving and connected services. The mobility company demonstrated its DRIVE Orin-based smart cockpit solution, which is part of the ICPAurora Intelligent Centralized Computing Platform, for powering new forms of in-vehicle infotainment, including 3D gaming and Android-based systems.

Desay SV’s integration of cabin and autonomous driving showcases centralizing all intelligent vehicle functions on a single NVIDIA DRIVE computer. Announced last September, the NVIDIA DRIVE Thor SoC is the successor to DRIVE Orin, delivering 2,000 teraflops of performance and designed to centralized automated driving and AI cockpit functions on a single platform. DRIVE Thor is targeting automakers’ 2025 models.

Baidu Apollo showcased its level-2 driver-assisted product Apollo City Driving Max intelligent driving computing unit, featuring a Baidu-developed intelligent-driving domain controller and powered by two NVIDIA DRIVE Orin SoCs to process camera and lidar sensor data for enhanced safety behind the wheel. The company reports the Apollo City Driving Max will be available in volume production to automakers globally in 2023.

Momenta launched Mpilot Pro, its new advanced driver-assistance solution. The solution adopts the energy-efficient DRIVE Orin to meet the computing performance requirements of mainstream mid-range models. In addition, DRIVE Orin’s compatible architecture scales from level 2+ ADAS to level 5 autonomous driving.

The NVIDIA DRIVE ecosystem can be found throughout this year’s Auto Shanghai — showcasing how NVIDIA is leading the charge toward a future of intelligent vehicles that deliver higher levels of safety, convenience and enjoyment on the road.

Editor’s note: This post is part of our weekly In the NVIDIA Studio series, which celebrates featured artists, offers creative tips and tricks, and demonstrates how NVIDIA Studio technology improves creative workflows. We’re also deep diving on new GeForce RTX 40 Series GPU features, technologies and resources, and how they dramatically accelerate content creation.

NVIDIA Omniverse, a pillar of the NVIDIA Studio suite of tools and apps built for creators, helps interconnect 3D artists’ workflows by replacing linear pipelines with live-sync creation.

This week’s In the NVIDIA Studio artists specializing in 3D, Gianluca Squillace and Pasquale Scionti, benefitted from just that — in their individual work and in collaborating to construct the final scene for their project, Cold Inside Diorama.

The artists set out to build a Viking scene that conveyed a cold, glacial mood — uniting Squillace’s character with Scionti’s environment while maintaining their individual styles. Such a workflow, which used to require endless exports and imports, was made simple with Omniverse and Universal Scene Description (USD), the open and extensible ecosystem for describing, composing, simulating and collaborating within 3D worlds.

It Takes Character

Powered by a GeForce RTX 4080 GPU, Squillace started with rich reference research to create the character. He took several realistic and stylized images, concepts and photos of characters and weapons to define all the details.

After defining the character, Squillace built a quick blockout in the ZBrush tool, before sculpting all the details to reach the definitive high-poly model. The character’s hairstyle and other aspects underwent several tests in this step of the process before arriving at the final version.

Squillace then moved on to the retopology and UV phase in Autodesk Maya, optimizing models for movements and deformations, which he said allows excellent control of the polygons with quad draw and simple management of the UVs. It also enables mirroring different UV shells and saving space by improving the final quality.

The artists brought the completed high- and low-poly into Adobe Substance 3D Painter for the bake and texturing phase. Squillace had already defined the main colors with polypaint in ZBrush, so he used the materials present in Painter to stylize different metals, leathers and woods and achieve the final textures.

After completing a quick rig and an animation idle in Maya, the animation in video games when the main character remains still, the artist took advantage of the USD file format to instantly pull the animation into NVIDIA Omniverse USD Composer (formerly known as Create) to see the results in real time.

“With the connectors plug-in installed in Substance 3D Painter and Maya, I could edit textures and animation in real time and immediately see the results in Omniverse USD Composer, without exporting extra files or having to close and reopen the software,” Squillace said. “It was really a great improvement in terms of workflow and speed.”

He next felt the benefit of working with USD when seamlessly importing files into Marmoset Toolbag for character-only renders.

Squillace took full advantage of his RTX GPU in nearly every step of production. “I was really impressed by the fast calculation of ray-traced lighting in the Marmoset Toolbag scene, which lets me make a lot of real-time renders and videos with an outstanding final result,” he said.

A Hostile Environment Built in a Friendly One

Another artist worked in parallel. Scionti built the cold, harsh environment using Omniverse’s collaboration capabilities and USD files. This combination enabled him to integrate his files with Squillace’s — and see edits in real time.

Scionti said he always starts his work by establishing its mood. With the cold, glacial tone set for this piece, he modeled some of the scene elements using Autodesk 3ds Max before importing them into Adobe Substance 3D Painter, where he created unique materials.

For some additional materials, he used Quixel software and completed the composition and design using Quixel Megascans. As with all his work, in this piece Scionti intentionally left room for interpretation, letting the audience imagine their own story.

The scene was then finalized with composition mood and lighting. Accelerated by his GeForce RTX 3090 GPU, Unreal Engine 5.1 and Lumen with hardware ray tracing helped Scionti achieve a higher level of realism with intricate details. Nanite meshes with improved virtualized geometry were useful to generate high-polygon models for close-up details. In the lighting phase, the artist used sun and sky with volumetric fog and high dynamic range.

“My GPU gives me so many realistic details in real time,” Scionti said.

The duo then brought Squillace’s work into Scionti’s Unreal Engine scene to integrate the character into the snowy environment. With their scene complete, the artists enjoyed the final render and reflected on its creation.

“NVIDIA Omniverse was the center of experimentation for this project — it allowed me to work with different software at the same time, increasing the production speed of the final character,” Squillace said. “I think the system provides enormous potential, especially if combined with the standard production workflow of a 3D asset.”

Scionti added that Omniverse is “a great software to collaborate with other people around the globe and interact in real time on the same project.”

Follow NVIDIA Studio on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Access tutorials on the Studio YouTube channel and get updates directly in your inbox by subscribing to the Studio newsletter. Get started with Omniverse and learn more on Instagram, Medium, Twitter and YouTube for additional resources and inspiration. Check out the Omniverse forums, and join our Discord server and Twitch channel to chat with the community.

At the Hannover Messe trade show this week, Siemens unveiled a digital model of next-generation FREYR Battery factories that was developed using NVIDIA technology.

The model was created in part to highlight a strategic partnership announced Monday by Siemens and FREYR, with Siemens becoming FREYR’s preferred supplier in automation technology, enabling the Norway-based group to scale up production and maximize plant efficiency.

Built by Siemens, the demo uses the NVIDIA Omniverse development platform to provide an immersive experience of the FREYR factories and follows the joint vision for an industrial metaverse unveiled last year by Siemens and NVIDIA.

Displayed as part of an industrial metaverse experience in the Siemens booth during Hannover Messe 2023, the world’s largest industrial technology trade show, the demos incorporate operational data from the FREYR factory in Norway.

Highlighting the integration between Siemens Xcelerator and NVIDIA Omniverse, the demo features 3D representations of the infrastructure, plant, machinery, equipment, human ergonomics, safety information, robots, automated guided vehicles, and detailed product and production simulations.

These technologies will help FREYR to meet surging demand for high-density, cost-effective battery cells for stationary energy storage, electric mobility and marine applications.

Amid growing worldwide sustainability initiatives and the rapid electrification of transportation, the battery industry is projected to grow to $400 billion by 2030. Battery cell manufacturing is a critical step in the battery value chain, with manufacturers investing billions of dollars in new battery-cell plants to meet this new demand.

In the demo, Siemens shows a vision for how teams can harness comprehensive digital twins in the industrial metaverse using models of existing and future plants.

Within moments, FREYR can set up a meeting with potential investors or customers to take place within the digital FREYR plant in Norway and explore the facility’s exterior before entering to view current production processes at work.

The striking interior flythrough instantly conveys the facility’s size and scale. The real-time, physically accurate simulation shows how machines and robots inside the factory move, and can even simulate complex processes. Sensors capturing machine information allow real-time performance visualization and ergonomic assessments.

The demo also demonstrates how the model can be used for production planning, highlighting how a plant manager can rapidly evaluate plant performance using a custom Siemens application, which provides at a glance an overview of the facility’s operation.

From there, the manager initiates a Microsoft Teams meeting with colleagues at a manufacturing “cell” — which places key people, machines and supplies in one strategic location — inside the virtual factory.

The team can then examine a robotic arm experiencing low-cycle-time issues, access machine performance data, identify specific cycle-time problems and view a live video stream with accompanying sensor data on machine performance.

This showcase at Hannover Messe is only the beginning, as more industries embrace and implement the industrial metaverse.

Learn more about NVIDIA Omniverse and our partnership with Siemens.

Editor’s note: This post is part of our weekly In the NVIDIA Studio series, which celebrates featured artists, offers creative tips and tricks, and demonstrates how NVIDIA Studio technology improves creative workflows. We’re also deep diving on new GeForce RTX 40 Series GPU features, technologies and resources, and how they dramatically accelerate content creation.

The GeForce RTX 4070 GPU, the latest in the 40 Series lineup, is available today starting at $599.

It comes backed by NVIDIA Studio technologies, including hardware acceleration for 3D, video and AI workflows; optimizations for RTX hardware in over 110 popular creative apps; and exclusive NVIDIA Studio apps like Omniverse, Broadcast, Canvas and RTX Remix.

VLC media player added RTX Video Super Resolution to automatically upscale video to 4K resolution and beyond. GeForce RTX 40 and 30 Series GPU owners will immediately benefit from improved virtual fidelity.

The RTX Remix runtime for remastering classic games is now available as open source on GitHub. It empowers the mod development community to extend Remix’s game compatibility and feature set.

Creators can install the new April NVIDIA Studio Driver, supporting these latest updates and more, available for download today.

Plus, see how NVIDIA’s Hauler piece came to life using the Omniverse USD Composer app, this week In the NVIDIA Studio.

A Creator’s Dream

The GeForce RTX 4070 joins NVIDIA’s lineup of GPUs, featuring 12GB of ultra-fast GDDR6X VRAM with advancements of the NVIDIA Ada Lovelace architecture, primed to supercharge all content-creation workflows.

Like other GeForce RTX 40 Series GPUs, the GeForce RTX 4070 is much more efficient than previous-generation products, using 23% less power than the GeForce RTX 3070 Ti. Negligible amounts of power are used when the GPU is idle, or used for web browsing or watching videos, thanks to power-consumption enhancements in the GeForce RTX 40 Series.  

3D modelers rendering 4K scenes with the AI-powered DLSS 3 technology in NVIDIA Omniverse, a platform for creating and operating metaverse applications, can expect 2.8x faster performance than with the GeForce RTX 3070 Ti.

Broadcasters deploying the eighth-generation NVIDIA video encoder, NVENC, with support for AV1, will  enjoy 40% better efficiency. Livestreams will appear as if bitrate was increased by 40% — a big boost in image quality for popular broadcast apps like OBS Studio.

Plus, AI enthusiasts using the Stable Diffusion deep learning model can generate detailed images conditioned on text descriptions 1.4x faster with the GeForce RTX 4070.

RTX Video Super Resolution Comes to VLC Media Player

VLC media player, a popular, free and open-source multimedia player for Windows PCs, has added RTX Video Super Resolution to intelligently upscale video to 4K resolutions and beyond.

Owners of RTX 40 and 30 Series GPUs can now play local video on VLC with crisper edges and noticeably reduced compression artifacts.

Access is quick and easy. Begin by downloading the full version of VLC. Once installed, open the NVIDIA Control Panel, navigate to Adjust video image settings and enable Super Resolution under RTX video enhancement.

Ready for RTX Remix Runtime

RTX Remix, the newest app in the NVIDIA Studio suite, is a revolutionary modding tool used to enhance classic DirectX 8 and 9 games with full ray tracing, AI-enhanced textures and other graphics improvements.

Remix is composed of two core components: a creator toolkit and a custom, open-source runtime.

The Remix creator toolkit, built on Omniverse and used to develop the hit remastered game Portal With RTX, allows modders to assign new assets and lights within their scene and use AI tools to rebuild the look of any asset. The RTX Remix creator toolkit will be available in early access soon.

Remix runtime captures every element of a game scene, replacing assets at playback and injecting RTX technologies, such as path tracing, DLSS 3 and Reflex, into the game. Mod developers are already using the RTX Remix runtime from Portal With RTX to create experimental remastered scenes in numerous classic games.

Remix runtime is ready to download on GitHub. Learn more about Remix runtime and its potential to transform game development.

The Remarkable Rocket Man

NVIDIA’s project Hauler launched to test the sheer amount of instancing that could occur in a unified project.

Instancing, aka referencing, refers to the mass duplication of a model with minor variations, essential for populating massive 3D worlds with many detailed objects while maintaining realism. It’s useful for creating scenes, say, in a forest with hundreds of trees, or in this instance, in outer space with thousands of asteroids.

Lead NVIDIA artist Rogelio Olguin, who has over 25 years of experience in the gaming industry, teamed up with colleagues to build a massive scene, rich with asteroids. Olguin loves a good challenge.

“I feel that one of the trappings of artists at times is that if you lose exploration and learning, you will just get stuck,” said the artist. “It’s important to explore and work on areas you’re not good at as an artist to improve.”    

The team gathered reference materials from movies, shows and anime before putting it all together in a shared board for the team to add and edit. The collaborative board included thumbnail sketch storyboards made in Adobe Photoshop and preliminary concept art.

The vast number of asteroids were procedurally created in SideFX Houdini, taking advantage of the RTX-accelerated Karma XPU renderer, which enables fast rendering of complex 3D models and simulations. It was all made possible by his GeForce RTX GPU.

Next, Maxon’s ZBrush was used to sculpt the main asteroids. The Drop 3D function was especially helpful in increasing the density of local meshes while maintaining high-resolution details.

Then came the animation phase in SideFX Houdini, building animations of the large and tiny cloud-based asteroids alike to ensure constant movement and rotation.

Olguin stressed the importance of his GeForce RTX 40 Series GPU. “Virtually every part of the process relied on RTX GPU technology, including path-traced rendering,” he said. “Without RTX acceleration, this piece would have been impossible.”

With all components in place, the team worked in Omniverse USD Composer (formerly known as Create) to assemble complex, physically accurate simulations. They collaboratively edited 3D scenes in real time with ease.

“The primary benefit of using Omniverse USD Composer was being able to quickly see what I was doing, and place and compose our shots quickly, which made this so simple to work on,“ said Olguin.

USD Composer works with the Universal Scene Description (USD) format, enabling artists to choose their 3D app of choice. It supports Autodesk Maya, SideFX Houdini, Trimble SketchUp and more. It also removes pipeline bottlenecks, so there’s no need for artists to constantly download, reformat, upload and download again.

After all, using USD Composer to collaborate in 3D is just comet sense.

Stay tuned for more updates on Hauler. For more artistic inspiration from Olguin, check out his ArtStation page.

AV1 encoding support is coming to YouTube via OBS. GeForce RTX GPU owners broadcasting on YouTube can expect increased streaming quality. This feature is currently in beta and will be available as a general release in the near future.

Follow NVIDIA Studio on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Access tutorials on the Studio YouTube channel and get updates directly in your inbox by subscribing to the Studio newsletter. Learn more about Omniverse on Instagram, Medium, Twitter and YouTube for additional resources and inspiration. Check out the Omniverse forums, and join our Discord server and Twitch channel to chat with the community.

A new adventure with publisher Bandai Namco Europe kicks off this GFN Thursday. Some of its popular titles lead seven new games joining the cloud this week.

Plus, gamers can play them on more devices than ever, with native 4K streaming for GeForce NOW available on select LG Smart TVs.

Better Together

Bandai Namco is no stranger to delivering hit games. And GeForce NOW delivers high-performance cloud game streaming, making it the ultimate way to play the publisher’s high-quality titles.

“Our collaboration with NVIDIA will allow more players to enjoy Bandai Namco titles like ‘Little Nightmares’ across their devices, thanks to the power of the GeForce NOW cloud,” said Anthony Macare, senior director of digital business and customer experience at Bandai Namco Europe.

It’s the perfect time to jump into the Little Nightmares series, the critically acclaimed puzzle-platformer games set in a dark, nightmarish world. Confront childhood fears and help Six, a brave young girl escape The Maw — a vast, mysterious vessel inhabited by corrupted souls looking for their next meal— in Little Nightmares. 

Then play as Mono, a boy with a paper bag on his head looking for answers, in Little Nightmares II. With Six as a guide, face a host of new threats on the way to discover the dark secrets of The Signal Tower. The Enhanced Edition of Little Nightmares II adds an extra layer of eerie realism with RTX ON, which  Ultimate and Priority members can select after launching the game from Steam.

Little Nightmares and Little Nightmares II, Get Even and 11-11 Memories Retold are the first of many Bandai Namco titles arriving to the cloud this week.

Life’s Good in 4K

Head on over to gaming on the big screen with LG Smart TVs. The Gaming Shelf on LG 2020-2022 TVs and the Game Quick Card on 2023 TVs already prominently feature GeForce NOW titles right on the home page, providing members with effortless discoverability to stream over 1,000 games directly from their LG Smart TVs.

To further enhance the user experience for Ultimate members, native 4K streaming through GeForce NOW is freshly available on select LG 2023 Smart TVs such as the flagship OLED B3, C3 and G3 models. Ultimate members in over 80 supported countries can jump right into their favorite PC titles in pixel-perfect 4K resolution with exclusive access to GeForce NOW’s fastest servers and eight-hour gaming sessions. Members won’t ever need to leave the spot in front of their LG TVs, except maybe to stock up on more snacks.

LG Smart TVs feature lifelike picture quality and high refresh rates so members can enjoy stunning games like Dying Light 2 and Cyberpunk 2077 in 4K — no need for a console nor worries about hardware requirements. It’s one of the easiest ways to try out the new Ray Tracing: Overdrive Mode update for Cyberpunk 2077, which adds full ray tracing, or path tracing, further enhancing the visual fidelity of Night City’s neon-soaked streets and beyond. The update is available now, so upgrade to Ultimate today to check out all the streaming goodness.

Gimme Gimme More

New ways to stream, plus seven new games this week. Here’s the full list:

• MORDHAU (New release on Epic Games Store, free on April 13)
• DE-EXIT – Eternal Matters (New release on Steam, April 14)
• 11-11 Memories Retold (Steam)
• canVERSE (Steam)
• Get Even (Steam)
• Little Nightmares (Steam)
• Little Nightmares II (Steam)

Finally, let the fun and games begin, starting by answering this week’s GFN Thursday question in the comments below, or on Facebook and Twitter.

What’s your go-to horror game?

— NVIDIA GeForce NOW (@NVIDIAGFN) April 12, 2023

Creating a map requires masterful geographical knowledge, artistic skill and evolving technologies that have taken people from using hand-drawn sketches to satellite imagery. Just as important, changes need to be navigated in the way people consume maps, from paper charts to GPS navigation and interactive online charts.

The way people think about video games is changing, too. Today, 83% of GeForce RTX 40 Series desktop gamers with RTX-capable games enable ray tracing, and 79% turn on DLSS, showcasing the widespread adoption of these revolutionary technologies.¹

They’re also widely adopted among prior RTX 30 Series and 20 Series owners; 56% and 43% turn on ray tracing, while 71% and 68% turn on DLSS, respectively.

At the core of this story: For any media — from movies and music to maps and magazines — technologies don’t just define the way people create content, they redefine how it’s consumed, ultimately becoming integral parts of its transformation.

That’s why it’s essential to consider both ray tracing and DLSS when evaluating an RTX 40 Series upgrade — which is how today’s gamers achieve the best graphics and performance.

A New Standard in Gaming

NVIDIA introduced neural rendering with its Turing architecture in the RTX 20 Series five years ago. Neural rendering combines two complementary breakthroughs — real-time ray tracing and DLSS — with the shading techniques long a staple of real-time graphics.

Powered by dedicated Tensor Cores for AI and RT Cores for ray tracing, RTX and DLSS have transformed the gaming industry. The initial implementations were a first critical step. Back in 2018, 37% of RTX 20 Series gamers embraced ray tracing, and 26% turned on DLSS.²

Fast forward to the present, and the GeForce RTX 40 Series — the third generation of RTX — has established ray tracing and DLSS as the new standard in gaming.

Ray Tracing Delivers Unparalleled Immersion

Ray tracing performance has significantly improved thanks to advancements like Shader Execution Reordering, cutting-edge Opacity Micromap and Displaced Micro-Mesh engines.

This week Cyberpunk 2077’s Ray Tracing: Overdrive Mode technology preview showcases the evolution of ray tracing into full ray tracing, offering enhanced real-time lighting, shadows and reflections.

These innovations enable even the most demanding games to simultaneously implement multiple ray-tracing effects or even full ray tracing, aka path tracing, for unparalleled realism and immersion.

DLSS Delivers Significant Performance Boosts

Meanwhile, DLSS Super Resolution has evolved to deliver significant performance boosts without compromising image quality. Ongoing neural network updates and model training on an NVIDIA supercomputer — with over an exaflop of AI processing power — continue to improve image fidelity and motion quality.

With DLSS 3, AI-powered Frame Generation creates new high-quality frames for smoother gameplay while maintaining great responsiveness through NVIDIA Reflex. AI can now generate seven out of every eight pixels through a combination of Super Resolution and Frame Generation.

A Potent Combination

This potent combination of third-generation ray tracing and DLSS has resulted in a staggering 16x leap in ray-tracing operations per pixel over the past five years. And where performance goes, PC gamers and game developers follow.

Adoption rates have soared, with over 400 RTX games and applications available and more on the horizon. DLSS 3, in particular, has seen a 7x faster adoption rate than its predecessor.

The popularity of ray tracing and DLSS outpaces other configurations, such as 4K, which is used by 28% of RTX 40 Series desktop gamers, and 144Hz or higher monitors, used by 62%.

As a result, judging a great game like Cyberpunk 2077 with DLSS and ray tracing off doesn’t demonstrate how a large and growing number of gamers will experience this game.

As DLSS and ray tracing continue to redefine gaming experiences, raster-only numbers no longer paint the picture gamers are seeing. This is only natural because, as PC gamers know, the full picture is looking better than ever.

¹ Data from millions of RTX gamers who played RTX capable games in February 2023 shows 79% of 40 Series gamers, 71% of 30 Series gamers and 68% of 20 Series gamers turn DLSS on. 83% of 40 Series gamers, 56% of 30 Series gamers and 43% of 20 Series gamers turn ray tracing on.​

² Data from RTX 20 Series gamers who played RTX-capable games in 2018​.

Imagine a stroller that can drive itself, help users up hills, brake on slopes and provide alerts of potential hazards. That’s what GlüxKind has done with Ella, an award-winning smart stroller that uses the NVIDIA Jetson edge AI and robotics platform to power its AI features.

Kevin Huang and Anne Hunger are the co-founders of GlüxKind, a Vancouver-based startup that aims to make parenting easier with AI. They’re also married and have a child together who inspired them to create Ella.

In this episode of the NVIDIA AI Podcast, host Noah Kravitz talks to Huang and Hunger about their journey from being consumers looking for a better stroller to becoming entrepreneurs who built one.

They discuss how NVIDIA Jetson enables Ella’s self-driving capabilities, object detection, voice control and other features that make it stand out from other strollers.

The pair also share their vision for the future of smart baby gear and how they hope to improve the lives of parents and caregivers around the world.

Additional resources:

• Learn more about GlüxKind and Ella.
• Watch a demo of Ella in action.
• Dive deeper into how NVIDIA Jetson powers AI at the edge.
• Read about how GlüxKind won a CES 2023 Innovation Award for its smart stroller.

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This GFN Thursday explores the many ways GeForce NOW members can play their favorite PC games across the devices they know and love.

Plus, seven new games join the GeForce NOW library this week.

More Ways to Play

GeForce NOW is the ultimate platform for gamers who want to play across more devices than their PC. Thanks to the power of the cloud, game progress can be paused and picked up across any device, whether crashing on the couch with a cell phone or traveling with a tablet.

Stream GeForce NOW on mobile without a controller using enhanced mobile touch controls enabled for games like Genshin Impact, the popular free-to-play, open-world, action role-playing game from HoYoverse. Members get access to updates as they release, including the upcoming version 3.6, “A Parade of Providence.” It’s available to stream next week, and brings a new event and characters sure to delight Genshin Impact fans.

Or stream on the go with GeForce NOW-recommended gamepads — including the Backbone One and the Razer Kishi — which work with Android and iOS devices to further enhance the cloud gaming mobile experience with added comfort. These devices are perfect for extended gaming sessions of up to six hours for Priority members and up to eight hours for Ultimate members.

And with the ability to stream from a high-powered RTX gaming rig in the cloud, GeForce NOW is the only way to play graphics-intensive games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy on mobile at up to 120 frames per second with ultra-low latency for Ultimate members.

So whether on a tablet, TV, Mac, Chromebook or phone, GeForce NOW members are covered with high-performance cloud streaming. Level up to an Ultimate or Priority membership today to experience all the benefits of PC gaming on the go.

So Fresh

As always, members can experience new games immediately from the cloud this week, without worrying about download times or system specs. Titles including Ravenswatch, Meet Your Maker, Road 96: Mile 0, TerraScape and Curse of the Sea Rats are all gamepad compatible for gaming on the go.

Plus, popular sci-fi MMORPG Tower of Fantasy brings a boatload of new content, including an all-new map and underwater request missions where players can explore everything from the upper levels of the Grand Sea Island to the deep waters of Dragon Breath Volcano.

It comes on top of the seven games available this week:

• Road 96: Mile 0 (New release on Steam)
• Meet Your Maker (New release on Steam)
• TerraScape (New release on Steam)
• Curse of the Sea Rats (New release on Steam, April 6)
• Ravenswatch (New release on Steam, April 6)
• Supplice (New release on Steam, April 6)
• Teardown (Steam)

Free members can now claim their Marvel’s Midnight Suns reward. Check the rewards portal to claim Captain Marvel’s Medieval Marvel suit by Saturday, May 6.

Finally, we’ve got our question of the week to wrap up this GFN Thursday. Let us know what device keeps you connected to the cloud in the comments below, on Twitter or Facebook.

time to pack for a last minute trip – which device are you bringing to play on the go?

— NVIDIA GeForce NOW (@NVIDIAGFN) April 5, 2023