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02.10.10 Nvidia Optimus To Forever Change Notebook Graphics 
By John Vinson
When one thinks of a notebook or laptop, the last thing on their minds is graphical power. The reason being, it’s quite difficult to provide an extensive graphical option that doesn’t drain battery. Therefore, people generally fall into two camps - those who sacrifice graphical prowess for greater battery life, and then the opposite. Nvidia looks to change the landscape of notebook graphics, with theOptimus technology. This bit of tech will integrate with a computer system, and decide optimal graphical processing power dependant on the application being used. Therefore, the workload will either route to a GPU or the integrated graphics processor. This process is significant, because depending on what video card is being used it can use up a lot of battery power. If the system is smart enough to detect which processor to use, it could drastically save on energy. The trick to getting the system to work, is being able to identify the profile an app is using. This is basically the source of information provided to Optimus when deciding how to process the graphical output. Sasha Ostojic, a developer of Optimus explains the function, “We introduced profiles with Nvidia SLI technology so the system would know how to handle the work associated with graphics.” Nvidia is able to accomplish this multi-processor solution by using SLI (scalable link interface). This video card format allows two cards to link together for greatly increasing graphical horsepower. When the GPU isn’t in power, it automatically powers down and will turn on again when needed. For Mac users, Optimus is theoretically compatible but there’s nothing concrete to report on in terms of actual integration. ASUS on the other will be using Optimus almost immediately, as theASUS N61Jv-X2 can be pre-ordered on Amazon for $899. Asus spokesperson Gary Ke, is excited about the partnership, “With Nvidia’s Optimus technology, you get the best of both worlds, as general application and multimedia duties are handled by Intel’s HD graphics for improved battery life, and demanding applications like gaming and video transcoding can be handled by Nvidia’s GT2xxM and GT3xxM discrete graphics processors on the fly.” About the Author: John is a staff writer for WebProNews. | ||||||||
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