What Is Crossfire

Crossfire is a technology developed by graphics chipset manufacturer, ATI and allows the use of two graphics cards in a single system in order to boost the PC's graphics output. It is similar to Nvidia's SLI, but has some advantages over Nvidia's technology and works in a slightly different way.

 ATI's Crossfire technology, like the Nvidia SLI technology, allows the use of two graphics cards in a single system with the benefit of boosting the system's graphics capability. Similar to SLI, Crossfire also uses the PCI-Express 16x architecture to connect graphics cards.

The first Crossfire system made it's appearance in 2005, but unlike Nvidia's SLI offering, which required technologies to be build into their graphics processing units in order to transfer data, the first Crossfire systems utilised a special master card on which chips were installed to link the two cards together. On top of this, to use Crossfire, it was necessary to use a motherboard that was compatible with Crossfire, as well as a Crossfire master card and a second, regular ATI graphics card.

Initially, there were only two ATI master cards released: The X800 Crossfire Edition and the similarly named X850. To use Crossfire, the second card had to belong to the same family of card as the master, so you could use any variant of the X800 with the X800 Crossfire master card. In addition, this meant that the master card could auto-configure itself in line with the technologies on the slave card, meaning Crossfire wasn't tied into running at a slower clock-speed as was found with Nvidia's SLI.

Whereas the Nvidia SLI cards were required to be connected together inside the PC, early generations of Crossfire-enabled cards connected externally via a pass-through connector, which connected the slave card to the master card via a DVI output. The Crossfire master card had a decoder chip which could convert the signal received from the slave card so that it could be combined with the data produced by the master card and rendered. Later generations of Crossfire adopted the Nvidia approach, and Crossfire graphics cards are now connected internally using a bridge cable.

Crossfire-enabled motherboards are enabled from the BIOS, rather than by an invertible card, as in SLI.

Crossfire provides several ways to divide 3D rendering work between the graphics cards. The first mode used by Crossfire is 'alternate frame rendering' or AFR which first appeared with ATI's Rage Fury MAXX graphics card, which used two Rage 128 graphics chips to render alternate frames. Crossfire AFR works in a similar fashion; each card takes on the job of rendering alternate frames, with one card rendering odd-numbered frames and the other rendering even-numbered frames.

The second mode of Crossfire is known as 'scissoring' which is similar to the split frame rendering used by Nvidia's SLI mode. In 'scissoring' mode, the screen is divided into two areas so that each half requires a roughly equal amount of work to produce. Each card creates one part of the image, and the slave sends it's work to the primary card for merging and display.

The third mode of Crossfire is known as 'supertiling'. This mode involved dividing the screen into what would resemble a chessboard, with each graphics card processing alternate squares of the board. However, 'supertiling' mode is only found in games that use the Direct X Direct3D API and only graphics cards that both have 16 pixel pipelines each can properly utilise 'supertiling'.

A fourth mode of Crossfire is also available, known as 'super AA'. This involves the two graphics cards performing anti-aliasing processes to produce a smoother image and increase image quality. Each of the two cards perform anti-aliasing on each frame using different sample patterns which are them combined to give a cumulative level of anti-aliasing than would be possible on a single card without suffering a loss of frame rate.

In the early days of Crossfire, it proved very difficult for anyone looking to build a Crossfire enabled PC due to severe shortages of master cards. As a result, with the next generation of Crossfire, ATI released their Xpress 3200 motherboard chipset. This allowed Crossfire systems to fully utilise the full speed of the PCI Express x16 slot across 2 installed cards, allowing them both to run with all 16 lanes functional. When it was used in conjunction with two X1300, X1600 and X1800 graphics cards, it allowed users to run a Crossfire system without the need to have a dedicated Crossfire master card. Furthermore, because neither card in these setups have the input connector used on Crossfire master cards, the image data is shuttled to the display card via the PCI Express bus rather than using a connector cable inside the PC. However, more powerful cards such as the X1900 range require a connector cable to be used as well as a master card.

ATI announced in late-2006 that the Crossfire system would be further expanded to allow the format to perform physics calculations by linking cards in Crossfire mode with another, third card which carried out the physics calculations. However, such a setup would require three PCI Express x16 motherboards and would likely be accompanied by a hefty pricetag.

NVIDIA Says AMD's DirectX 11 Cards Are Only a Short-Term Advantage

During the past months, most news articles that revolved around graphics products usually made at least a passing note that ATI (a business unit of AMD) was the only developer offering DirectX 11-capable graphics processing units. Still, even though it hasn't managed to introduce its own Fermi products, NVIDIA reportedly doesn't see AMD's 60-day head start as something noteworthy in the grand scheme of things.
"To us, being out of sync with the API for a couple of months isn't as important as what we're trying to do in the big scheme of things for the next four or five years. We're just around the corner from preparing our next GeForce and the experience of what you'll see in 3D, what you'll feel in physics, and the improvements you get in graphics will be obvious to the market," said Michael Hara, senior vice president of investor relations and communications of NVIDIA.

According to NVIDIA, the short-term advantage that AMD has been enjoying so far will be overshadowed by the transition from purely graphics-oriented GPUs to units capable of parallel computing tasks. Granted, the advanced visual features of DirectX are not overlooked by the GPU maker, but the company is fully confident that Fermi will reclaim the market.

"This 60-day lag between these events of when our competition has DX11 and when we're coming to market will absolutely seem insignificant in the big picture," Hara stated. "We're almost there. In Q1, the world will get to see what we've done with Fermi."

Among the advanced capabilities offered by DirectX 11 (which was released along with Windows 7) are support for multi-core processors and DirectCompute that enable developers to fully utilize the parallel processing capabilities for graphics processors for operations such as video editing. DirectX 11 also supports tessallation allowing for the rendering of smoother curved surfaces.

"We go through revolutionary changes every three of four years, and that's exactly where we're at today. The next big evolution in the API world has come with DirectX 11 (DX11), but we believe that's a part of the experience," Hara added.

softpedia 

What is DirectX 11......

DirectX 11 has created a lot of buzz throughout the 3D gaming community, but what could the application programming interface (API) mean for the designer or CAD professional?AMD’s Rob Jamieson explains

All 3D programs rely on an application programming interface (API). When combined with a 3D graphics card this is what makes real time 3D graphics possible. Most professional 3D applications use OpenGL, whereas most games use Microsoft’s DirectX. However, with DirectX 11 and supporting hardware and software now out in the market, details of what the API offers 3D CAD users are becoming more clear.
Direct X currently provides the 3D graphics engine for a few CAD applications including Autodesk Inventor and MicroStation. It is also the secondary graphics engine in Solid Edge. Currently Autodesk Inventor is mainly DX9 with some bits of DX10 used to release the 3D engine to do other tasks. It’s likely that Autodesk would introduce some of the new features of DX11 inside a future release of its 3D CAD software but what does DX11 offer?

DirectX 11 can be used to tessellate meshes on the fly. In engineering, the technology could potentially be used to refine meshes for FEA

Multi core

For some time now we have been using multi core CPUs. However, the number of applications that can really exploit all of these cores are still limited and include rendering, plus certain software for Finite Element Analysis (FEA), Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and CAM. Recently this has started to change with multithreaded software appearing in other areas, including graphics.
The DirectX 11 API also supports multithreading to handle things like display lists. This is information that is passed backwards and forwards between the computer’s system memory and the graphic card’s GPU and memory. By using spare CPU cores to control the graphics card, the workstation can dedicate specific CPU cores to work with the CAD application. This not only speeds up the CAD application, but can increase the physical 3D rotation speed of the model -  in some cases as much as 20 to 50%.

Compute shaders

The next thing that DX11 offers is “compute shaders”. These can perform post-processing operations including physics, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and particle systems. Most 3D animation software, including 3ds Max, support some of these features in one form or another and they use the CPU or GPU to handle this. DX11 has great access to the geometry that these operations use so it has a key importance and an advantage to make things happen quickly without the long wait that can be associated existing methods.
Physics are also of great interest to solid modellers to test if components collide when moving. A lot of modellers do this already using the CPU but when the assembly gets larger, the processing time can be huge. Using shaders could solve this.

Tessellation

Tessellation is the process of transforming data and adapting it for another purpose, on the fly. It can take an existing mesh and enhance certain sections of a model to give more detail. It can also be used the other way round to reduce detail in a scene. For example, in a landscape the far off detail is not required, so it can be reduced to increase real time 3D performance or reduce render times. In engineering, the technology could potentially be used to refine meshes for FEA.

Visual effects

3ds Max uses .fx shaders today to show depth of field and motion blur that can be taken to the final render. DX 11 enhances the use of these inside a viewport where there are options to interact with applying them. Studio GPU’s software Mach Studio Pro also has some of these capabilities in a rasteriser format. Roughly 85% of applications use a rasteriser approach including most 3D creation applications. There is often a lot of confusion between rasteriser and ray tracing when people see realtime shader effects. All of these functions add realism to any 3D application including CAD.

OpenGL

In order to make use of these new capabilities, a DirectX 11 compatible graphics card is required, but the raw hardware can also be utilised by OpenGL and OpenCL, which is used to execute across heterogeneous platforms consisting of CPUs, GPUs, and other processors (tinyurl.com/D3DopenCL).
The recently announced OpenGL 4.0 includes a raft of new features bringing OpenGL in line with Microsoft’s DirectX specification. OpenGL 3.3 was also just released, providing as many of the new version 4 features as possible to older graphics hardware. (http://www.opengl.org has a list of all these new features).
OpenGL is still extremely important for CAD as 70% of CAD applications use it. It also has the advantage of working on multiple platforms, including Windows, Linux and Mac, whereas DX11 only works on Windows Vista and Windows 7.

The future

Historically, when it comes to 3D, most CAD users have been primarily concerned with frame rates, visual quality and stability. However, with the advent of DirectX 11 there is the potential for benefits to go way beyond these standard metrics. And while OpenGL is likely to remain a strong foundation technology for CAD, the increased competition from DX 11 is certainly helping advance 3D technology in general, which can only be a good thing.

www.directx.com
develop3d 

British firm offered spying software to Egyptian regime – documents

Gamma International's Finfisher program would have enabled government spies to monitor activists and censor websites

Egyptian anti-government bloggers work on their laptops from Cairo's Tahrir Square on February 10, 2011 Photograph: Patrick Baz/AFP/Getty Images

A British company offered to sell a program to the Egyptian security services that experts say could infect computers, hack into web-based email and communications tools such as Skype and even take control of other groups' systems remotely, according to documents seen by the Guardian.
Two Egyptian human rights activists found the documents amid hundreds of batons and torture equipment when they broke into the headquarters of the regime's State Security Investigations service (SSI) last month.
One of the papers, in English and headed Finfisher Proposal: Commercial Offer, contained an offer dated 29 June 2010 to provide "FinSpy" software, hardware, installation and training to the SSI for €287,000 (£255,000). The name on the invoice, dated Tuesday 29 June 2010, was Gamma International UK Limited.
Other documents, written in Arabic and marked "ultimately confidential", state that after being offered a "free trial version" of Gamma's Finfisher software to test its ability to hack into email accounts, the SSI concluded it was "a high-level security system" that could get into email accounts of Hotmail, Gmail and Yahoo, as well as allowing "full control" of the computers of "targeted elements". It went on to describe the software's "success in breaking through personal accounts on Skype network, which is considered the most secure method of communication used by members of the elements of the harmful activity because it is encrypted".
The find throws a spotlight on western companies that provide software to security services and agents of oppressive regimes to spy on, censor and block the websites with which activists communicate. Last month a report by OpenNet Initiative said nine countries across the Middle East and North Africa used US and Canadian technology to impede access to online content, including sites with political, social and religious material.
Mostafa Hussein, a Cairo blogger and physician who took the documents, said they formed important evidence against the SSI's activities. "This proposal was sent to a department well known for torture, for abuse of human rights, for spying on political campaigners. This company, Gamma, should be exposed as collaborators in the crimes of trying to invade our privacy and arrest activists."
Hussein posted the documents online and passed a copy to the Guardian.
A Gamma International website called "Finfisher IT Intrusion" describes its software as allowing "remote monitoring and infection" that can provide "full access to stored information with the ability to take control of the target". It is advertised as capable of "capturing encrypted data and communications" and allowing a "government agency to remotely infect target systems".
The documents found in the SSI HQ, one dated 1 January 2011, said that the proposal from Gamma International had come via a subsidiary company, Modern Communications System. Following a "free" five-month trial, SSI described the software as like "planting a comprehensive spying system in the location where the targeted computer exists". The software could record voice and audio calls, movements through video and audio where the computer was located, and hack into all the computers in the same network.
Rick Ferguson, of internet security company Trend Micro, said: "Our position on commercial spyware is that if the monitoring is being done without the consent of the person being monitored then that would be the theft of information.
"There's certainly an ambiguity of selling that kid of technology to that type of regime. There are a lot of commercial tools to enable you to remotely monitor and manage computers but it's about how those tools are being used and whether those tools are being used covertly."
Amr Gharbeia, an activist who works at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, said the Finfisher software referred to in the proposal was "a trojan, a software you implant in someone else's device to control it and possibly get data from it. It puts you in the driver's seat so you can see someone else's email and allows also for identity fraud."
When contacted by the Guardian, Gamma International said in a statement: "Gamma International UK Limited manufactures equipment for dealing with security related threats and it supplies only to governments.
"Gamma International UK Limited has not supplied any of its Finfisher suite of products or related training etc to the Egyptian government."
Gamma said it "complies, in all its dealings, with all relevant UK legislation and regulation".
• This article was amended on 30 April 2011 to correct the spelling of Gamma International in the standfirst.

GUARDIAN

android vs iOs the hard equation

 Left, Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller introduces the iPhone 5 on Sept. 12, 2012. Samsung CEO J.K. Shin

brandishes two Galaxy S4 phones at the product launch on March 14, 20

Who’s winning the mobile platform wars, Apple’s iOS or Google’s Android
It’s one of the blogosphere’s favorite tech topics. Every new nugget of competitive information is fodder for an avalanche of coverage. Oftentimes, a story will declare that Android is beating iOS or that iOS is beating Android.
Really, though, it’s silly to obsess over any one data point. If what you’re after is a clear idea of how the world’s two dominant mobile operating systems are doing — rather than an excuse to make bold proclamations and/or cheer for your favorite — you want to consider lots of data points.
So that’s what I’m doing in this post. I’ve rustled up results from a bunch of studies, focusing on information that’s relatively fresh. (In some cases, it dates from the fourth quarter of 2012 — stats for the first quarter of this year are still scarce.)
A few notes on this exercise:
I’m not really going to look at changes over time. Trajectories are important, but there’s a limit to how much I can do in one story.
I won’t do deep analysis of why the numbers look the way they do. I’m collecting rather than interpreting, though I hope that some of you will draw conclusions in the comments.
I’m not going to include specific numbers for anything other than iOS and Android. Sorry, Windows Phone and BlackBerry — I’ll come back to you and how you’re doing at some point, I promise.
I won’t include forecasts and other predictions. I don’t believe in ‘em.
I’m not endorsing any of these studies. That’s dangerous unless you have a thorough knowledge of the methodology behind the numbers. Which I don’t.
Without any further ado, here are some key competitive questions, and the answers as provided by various research firms.

Which platform is selling the most smartphones?

In research conducted from mid-November through mid-February, Kantar Worldpanel Comtech showed sales of all Android phones outpacing the iPhone by a hefty margin: 52.1 percent to 43.5 percent. However, judging from past Kantar studies, these figures may be more of a freeze-frame of the competition at one particular point in time than a permanent reality: last year, Kantar had Android in the lead for a spell, and then it said that iOS had bounced back into first place.


Then there’s Comscore’s MobiLens study, which attempts to measure the smartphone platforms used by everyone in the U.S. over the age of 13 —  not just ones sold recently, but everything. The numbers it released this month are pretty similar to Kantar’s.

That’s the U.S. — how about everywhere else?

Worldwide, all those companies making Android phones sell a lot more units than Apple sells of the iPhone, says IDC. In the fourth quarter of 2012, Android had more than 70 percent share, vs. 21 percent for the iPhone.

And tablets?

Tablet shipment data is harder to come by than data for phones, and the most recent specific numbers by platform I could find were IDC’s full-year estimates for 2012, which it released on December 5 of last year. They had demand for 7″ Android tablets adding up to a decrease in the iPad’s dominance — but iOS still remained the most popular tablet operating system.

Which companies are selling the most smartphones?

Worldwide, according to IDC, Samsung — which deals primarily, but not exclusively in Android models — was the top manufacturer in the fourth quarter of last year, unit-wise. Apple was in second place.

In the U.S., however, Strategy Analytics says that Apple’s iPhone shipments outpaced Samsung. (Strategy Analytics says that its numbers are for “mobile phones,” so they may include plain ol’ flip phones as well as smartphones.)

Who’s making money selling smartphones?

As you might guess from the above two charts, Apple and Samsung are the ones raking in the bucks, says Canaccord Genuity. And Apple is raking in far more of them than Samsung, taking 72 percent of the profit in the last quarter of 2012. Samsung made 29 percent of the industry’s profit — mostly for Android phones, although it also has Windows Phone handsets. Everybody else in the business, including Android-centric makers such as HTC and Motorola, either broke even or lost money — which is why Apple and Samsung’s profits add up to more than 100 percent.

Which platform has the most apps?

After years of obsessing over the sheer quantity of apps available for these two platforms, the numbers seem to be similar, and similarly impressive, on both sides. Both Apple and Google currently claim more than 800,000 third-party programs for their respective platform.

What do the numbers look like for tablet-specific apps?

For iOS, Apple says there are more than 300,000 iPad-optimized programs. For Android: I wish I knew! As far as I know, Google hasn’t disclosed this number. But it’s safe to say that it remains piddling compared to Apple’s figure.

O.K., who has the best apps?

I hesitate to bring this up, because app quality is inherently subjective. But a company called uTest uses a system called Applause to crawl Apple’s App Store and Google’s Google Play, collecting user reviews and rankings. It then turns this data into scores from 1 to 100 for individual apps, and calculates average scores for each platform. In data published in a ReadWrite story in January, it said that the average iOS app, with a score of 68.5, is superior to the average Android app, at 63.3.

Which platform’s users are downloading the most apps?

According to Canalys, just over half of all apps downloaded in the first quarter of this year were for Android. iOS, at about 40 percent share, was the only other big-time player.

Who’s making money from app downloads?

According to Canalys’s data for the first quarter of this year, iOS users are spending much more on apps even if they’re downloading fewer of them overall.

Which platform gets used most on the Internet?

NetMarketShare publishes monthly stats on which browsers and operating systems are being used on the Net. Its report for March 2013 says that among mobile devices, iOS rules with 60.1 percent share. Android is way behind at 24.9 percent. Given that there are more Android devices out there, the data suggests that iOS users are disproportionately active online.
But here’s something weird: StatCounter, which does a similar study, comes up with numbers that are nothing like NetMarketShare’s. Its figures for March show Android usage easily outpacing iOS. Of course, the two organizations’ methodology may be radically different; I’m not sure, for instance, whether both, either or neither of them include the iPad in these numbers. But the disparity is a healthy reminder that it’s risky to draw conclusions from data you don’t know very much about.

Which platform is more widely used in business, iOS or Android?

A Citrix report covering the fourth quarter of 2012 comes as close to addressing this question as any recent study I’ve seen. It covers Citrix customers that “have deployed enterprise mobility management in the cloud,” and shows iOS as trouncing Android and everything else.

So who is winning — iOS or Android?

You had to ask, huh?
On some level, it’s too crude a question to take very seriously. There are just too many ways to define “winning,” and neither platform leads in every area. But here’s the closest thing to an objective answer I can manage.
“Android if you’re talking about market share; iOS if you mean financial success. So far, this is a strikingly different market than the PC business back in the 1990s, when market share translated directly into financial success.”

http://techland.time.com/2013/04/16/ios-vs-android/

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