Reborn Tech Maniac

Chapter 836 3D Acceleration Begins

……

Some people talk about pursuing the truth as a tool, which is naturally very high-sounding, but once the truth is exposed, it often makes them very embarrassed.

This is the case now - just the night before the International Olympic Committee finalized the right to host the 9 Olympic Games on September 23, the Australian Olympic Committee President John Coates hosted a banquet for African guests in a restaurant in Monte Carlo. Two IOC members - Mukla of Kenya and Nyan Viso of Uganda.

There was nothing wrong with the food and drink. The key point was that John Coates gave the two of them $35000 in cash on the spot, and was secretly photographed.

Judging from the quality of the evidence, the technique is very professional and obviously intentional, and John Coates just gave the other party a chance to display his skills.

It turned out that Australia relied on this method to barely win by two votes. The media that had been belittling China and praising Australia for its well-deserved reputation were suddenly confused.

Since Germany's "Stuttgart Zeitung" reported the news for the first time, there is reason to believe that the Germans were dissatisfied with their own "internal and external troubles" and ended their bid for the Olympic Games in an anticlimactic manner. happy.

The "Stuttgart Zeitung" quickly expressed its position - we are not the only media that has received the news, if you don't believe it, just ask "who's younger".

Looking at the names, they are all media under the News Corporation—no wonder there is no movement, you know, Murdoch started in Australia.

News Corporation quickly clarified that it was not that we did not report on purpose, but that there were some minor problems in the work process.

Well, since it's not German, it must be the Chinese who are angry at being hacked, doing it secretly.

China responded quickly - although this time it was unsuccessful, we are still prepared to continue to actively bid, but we will not be as stingy as you think.

No one admits that he is the initiator of the so-called conspiracy, and this situation is even more unmanageable.

Seeing that Australia, which I touted in order to attack China, is so muddy that it cannot support the wall, those media were angry and hated, and began to bite again.

For example, in order to bid for the 2000 Olympic Games, Australia raised its budget from the previous US$600 million to US$2800 million.

For another example, in order to win votes, Australia provided scholarships to African athletes—about 11 athletes from 400 African countries came to Australia, and the project cost more than 200 million US dollars.

All in all, these media will not give up unless they turn the old bottom of Australia that has let down their "devotion" to the sky.

The International Olympic Committee has also been devastated by this big scandal, and various stakeholders have repeatedly emphasized that they did not spread their family scandals by themselves.

Some committee members have even suggested that since Australia won't win by force, either it should take back the right to host the 2000 Olympic Games, or simply give it to China.

The powerful figures of the International Olympic Committee are naturally unwilling.Gein can only make mistakes now, otherwise, the International Olympic Committee will really have no prestige at all.

The discredited Australia also had to respond, shifting all responsibility to the Australian Olympic Committee Chairman John Coates-his personal behavior does not represent the country.

John Coates, who has been the vice-chairman of the Australian Olympic Committee for 6 years and the chairman of the Australian Olympic Committee for 4 years, held a press conference and announced his resignation in public. They expressed our desire to win. Personally, I think it will encourage them to vote for Sydney."

……

I have to say that the bidding process for the 2000 Olympic Games was very special and exciting. It was so ups and downs that many clowns cried out for pain while covering their red and swollen cheeks, while looking around and muttering—who did it?

Appreciating the frenzied situation, Tang Huan, while having fun, dived into the abyss even more - if Australia knew that Mr. Richest Man had exposed his old background, he would definitely turn his face in anger.

This matter, let it become a headless case.History is so attractive precisely because it has secrets.

In fact, the richest man hides himself very well, because he is not usually busy.

Under the promotion of Tang Huan, the commercialization of the Internet is ready and has begun to set sail.

The next thing is to make a fuss around this center.

For example, more capital is flicked in to form a real tide.As for whether it is a bubble or not, it is not within the controllable range of personal ability. Anyway, none of the benefits that should be taken have been lost.

At the same time, 3D acceleration, the last major gap in the development of microcomputer hardware, also began to appear.

The function of the graphics card of a personal computer was originally a simple display, that is, the digital display signal sent by the host computer to the monitor is converted into a general electrical analog signal, so that the monitor can understand what the personal computer commands it to do.

But soon, after this signal conversion function, the 2D acceleration function was added, and even the decoding and playback function of digital video such as VCD.

At this stage, at the level of the semiconductor industry, these three types of functions can already be built into one chip, and a single ordinary auxiliary accelerator, like a mathematical auxiliary processor for a CPU, is integrated into the manufacturing trend and takes away the living space. .

However, although 2D auxiliary accelerators have gradually lost their necessity, 3D acceleration has taken over.

Now the 3D acceleration function is also integrated into the same chip, which is not cost-effective in terms of technical difficulty and commercial cost.

Therefore, Mr. Richest Man, who holds the power of life and death in the development of the personal computer industry, believes that a separate 3D accelerator card, which has existed in the market for a period of time, can indeed provide a good buffer.

The key now is not to integrate the newly released 3D acceleration technology into the GPU in a hurry, but to guide game developers, graphics software developers, etc., to learn to use this new technical architecture.

This kind of two-way interaction has a non-negligible positive effect on whether the 3D acceleration new industry ecological chain can be built at the fastest speed and the support of a wider range of third-party manufacturers can be obtained.

……

Akio Morita, Norio Oga and his team visited this achievement together with Tang Huan. It will be officially released at COMDEX in Las Vegas this fall, and it is not a secret.

The richest man pointed to a person in the crowd and asked with great interest, "Who is this?"

"He is Ken Kutaragi, the head of Sony's computer entertainment department that was established just this year." Norio Ohga quickly introduced him, and couldn't help but wonder - what kind of look in Tang's eyes could actually turn Kutaragi, who seemed to have nothing out of the ordinary, from Picked out from the crowd.

"Nice to meet you." After shaking hands with the bent Ken Kutaragi, the richest man turned to Akio Morita and Norio Ohga with a meaningful smile: "It seems that Sony's territory in the field of entertainment consumption is getting bigger and bigger. It's getting bigger."

"Compared to Tang, we just realized later." Akio Morita, who was not feeling well, replied modestly.

Sony once wanted to quietly familiarize itself with the rules, master the resources, and finally enter this lucrative field by cooperating with Nintendo, which was eager to seek other technical supporters because Mitsubishi Electric could not keep up with the latest developments in home game consoles.

It's a pity that Hiroshi Yamauchi still found out about Sony's ulterior motives, and he decisively tore up the cooperation agreement without being provoked by others. Don't even think about it!
After Sony's chicken-and-egg strategy came to an end, senior executives were divided on whether to continue to enter the field of video games.

Ken Kutaragi, who was in charge of Sony during the cooperation with Nintendo, naturally hoped that the owner would not give up his original intention, otherwise, his career would be hit again.

Fortunately, Sony President Norio He made it clear that he supported his independent research and development of a new home game console, which is progressing well, and thus formed a Sony Computer Entertainment this year, which can be regarded as a formal establishment.

After the release of the 64-bit fourth-generation Holder microprocessor, the video game industry was also shaken.Gein’s current three-generation Xiaobawang game console uses a special version of the CPU of the Holder family——with the technical strength and tacit cooperation between Zheru and EA, it is a great achievement to introduce such a powerful microprocessor into the field of electronic game consoles. A matter of course.

The home game console currently being developed by Kutaragi Ken also uses a RISC microprocessor, which is an authorized derivative of MIPS and is compatible with the 32-bit chip R3000 under this architecture.

Regardless of the fact that the semiconductor industry is proud of itself globally at this stage, the products it relies on are mainly memory. In terms of technology, it is actually in a low-end position in the entire semiconductor industry, and the United States, which can independently develop a new CPU architecture Compared with peers, there is still a long way to go.

Therefore, under the surface of being king and domineering, it is inevitable to be controlled by others, and Sony is one of them.

Using the excuse of seeking a new graphics acceleration chip this time, Akio Morita and Norio Ohga wanted to evaluate the possible impact of the fourth-generation Holder on the field of home TV hosts, lest their products die before they are born.

When Kutaragi Ken and other technicians gradually learned that Zheru's 3D acceleration chip, code-named "Volcano", has hardware that supports Z-buffering, texture compression, linear filtering and texture mixing, and can reach 10MPixels/ After seeing the pixel fill rate of s, he couldn't help but show a look of joy when he saw Liexin.

"It also supports MPEG-1 hardware acceleration?" Morita Akio tentatively said.

Sony has been coveting digital video represented by VCD for a long time, and is planning to launch new technical standards to replace VCD, which has many obvious shortcomings.

"More than that. The latest MPEG-2 is also supported." Tang Huan said with a playful smile: "The low resolution of VCD has increasingly limited the home theater experience. Let's call this level low-definition, but it can reach The standard definition with 720x576 pixel resolution has naturally become the successor, and if it is combined with the digital TV under research, it will be more satisfactory."

"Tang has always been at the forefront in grasping the direction of the industry." Akio Morita complimented him.

The richest man seemed to enjoy the feeling of being elevated to the clouds, and took the initiative to show off: "We can take a look at the latest progress in this area."

The following demonstration platform consists of a personal workstation equipped with a "Volcano" 3D accelerator card and a TV with a "Sharp" LOGO.

Seeing the engineer explaining and connecting the digital TV to the TV interface of the workstation graphics card, Akio Morita frowned secretly—the influence of Tang Huan's IT technology on traditional home appliances is really becoming more and more obvious.

"This is the performance of DVD, the successor of VCD." The richest man pointed to the screen where a football game highlight was playing, and said calmly.

"It seems that the sound system has also been improved." Norio Ohga, who loves music very much, keenly noticed the audio performance of the DVD.

"The latest features, including surround sound multi-channel, etc., will be officially announced at the upcoming COMDEX in Las Vegas." Tang Huan replied to the point.

After the highlights of the football match, there is a detailed "FIFA" promotional video.

Kutaragi boldly asked: "Is this the next version of FIFA? It seems to use 3D acceleration technology."

The richest man laughed and answered seriously: "The Football World Cup will be held in the United States next year. It can be said that there are unlimited business opportunities. Of course, "FIFA" needs to use some new things to attract more players."

……

As a courtesy, Tang Huan's hospitality to Akio Morita, Norio Oga and his party was naturally very thoughtful and warm, and they looked very happy when they left.

However, according to the assistant responsible for putting these people on the plane to Hawaii, he came back to report—privately, Akio Morita and Norio Ohga were frowning, and even heard Akio Morita sighing inadvertently—it seems that we can only It's time for second place.

"I hope Sony can be so sensible." The richest man, who was more satisfied with the beating effect, smiled slightly.

Not long after, news came from Hawaii that Akio Morita had a sudden cerebral hemorrhage while playing tennis—a stroke.

Tang Huan, who was full of astonishment, said happily to himself: "Fortunately, they left quickly!"

(End of this chapter)