AMD's Cinema 2.0 demo: "you won't just play movies, you'll play in them"

That's a bold promise AMD. Nevertheless, a cinema-realistic gaming experience is exactly what they demonstrated yesterday in San Francisco. Cinema 2.0, according to AMD, is "a milestone achievement in ultra-realistic and interactive visual computing." Perhaps, but then the marketing-speak launches into unnecessary hyperbole with AMD calling its new teraFLOPS chip at the heart of the demo -- the RV770 GPU -- "more powerful than every generation of game console every brought to market combined." Really AMD? Last we counted there were about 13 million Cell processors scattered across the PS3 terra firma. But we'll assume that you're referring to a mythical mashup of a singular PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, PS2, etc. with a little Magnavox Odyssey sprinkled on top. Still, you might find the hype warranted when you realize that the demonstration was powered by a single PC loaded with a pair of (future) consumer-grade AMD RV770 graphics cards, Phenom X4 9850 processor, and 790FX chipset. Take a look for yourself in the video after the break.

[Mehdi Cheddadi @ Jun 17th 2008 1:48AM]

I

[Toshi @ Jun 17th 2008 1:50AM]

Couldn't have said it better myself.

[Dillon @ Jun 17th 2008 2:00AM]

i? You fricken Apple fanboy...

[XIYL @ Jun 17th 2008 3:24AM]

@ Dillon lol

[Elijah @ Jun 17th 2008 3:36AM]

Man.... I lol'd pretty hard at Toshi's reply.

[kal326 @ Jun 17th 2008 9:51AM]

I think what they were trying to say was "I for one welcome our cinema-realistic gaming experience robot overlords."

[El Taco @ Jun 18th 2008 5:13PM]

No way Mehdi! Me too! I thought I was the only one who thought that!

[V Langs @ Jun 17th 2008 1:50AM]

interesting concept.
lets see how it works out.

and mehdi, were just waiting for an article to write I in the comments. just to be first?

does that matter?

[Mehdi Cheddadi @ Jun 17th 2008 2:10AM]

I wanted to say "I *heart* Ruby"
but it cancelled every thing after the opening bracket for the heart...

engadget doesn't like ascii art

[Wwhat @ Jun 17th 2008 7:59AM]

♥ just a character test, sorry ❤ still sorry ❥ final sorry❣.

[ds @ Jun 17th 2008 9:01AM]

test failed.. go back to character map and try again.. ill wait for the next test

[Wwhat @ Jun 17th 2008 9:42AM]

Hmm, well no it didn't fail, although I need to test i on some other more basic computer that isn't so loaded with fonts, because arial unicode from MS for instance is only installed with certain MS software like MS office (or manually added) and so it's a question if these characters show on a system without lots of previously installed software, so the test isn't done yet.
(also I used babelmap, but who cares about such details)

[Bunson @ Jun 18th 2008 10:14PM]

Wwhat Wwhat? In the butt?

[AJ @ Jun 21st 2008 12:57PM]

@ Wwhat, lmao, u pwnd. Anyway, I just wanted to say that this technological advancement developed at AMD tech labs comes to prove the accuracy of Moore's Law. I however believe, like many other computer scientists and theorists, that we will soon hit a quantum-physical barrier which in a way will force the advancement of Quantum computing and maybe even other exotic forms of computing. Simply doubling the transistor count on each successive chip won't suffice any longer. Crysis anyone?

[thedesolate1 @ Jun 17th 2008 1:52AM]

Wow this is amazing..... I bet it is going to cost an arm and a leg.. after witch the purpose would of been defeated.. I mean who wants to play movie grade video games with 1 arm? lol

[marty.com.au @ Jun 17th 2008 2:00AM]

Nice!

[Loneguitarist @ Jun 17th 2008 4:05AM]

Unless you go and buy the BenHeck 1-handed videogame controller!

[andrew theis @ Jun 17th 2008 12:38PM]

I prefer the Glenn Beck one handed controller. Just think! Fear mongering and spreading vicious rumors about Barack Obama with only one hand! Revolutionary.

[Wwhat @ Jun 17th 2008 8:10AM]

Does it have to be your own arm?

[Charles Han @ Jun 17th 2008 1:52AM]

sweet i guess, nice prospect on the future, but come on amd get the current mobile chips in line, your getting slaughtered by intel. I am crossing my fingers by the time shrike hits, you'll get back on you feet.

[majortom @ Jun 17th 2008 1:53AM]

why would Apple advertise on a blog where the line in the sand is so clear. Are there any wishy washy Windows users here that could be swayed to use OSX ?

[thedesolate1 @ Jun 17th 2008 2:04AM]

dude... wtf does this have to do with the topic? I swear people always seem to find a way to turn every post into being somehow apple related.... I swear if I read another apple comment in an off topic post im gonna start talking about oranges.

[ethana2 @ Jun 17th 2008 2:12AM]

It is better. so yes.

[gad get @ Jun 17th 2008 2:24AM]

Orange ya glad I didn't say "Apple"?

[r3loaded @ Jun 17th 2008 3:10AM]

The future's bright, the future's Orange..

Back on topic, that demo looks pretty amazing.

[majortom @ Jun 17th 2008 10:40AM]

@thedesolate1
if you reread what I wrote you might see that I was pondering the fact that the ad on the right side of the screen was distracting; not to mention a waste of time. Sides have already been drawn up on this blog. On topic? No. Distracting? Yes. Oh, by the way no one calls anyone "dude" over the age of 16. Assuming you are over that age, you might want to rethink your use of the English language.

[Jeff @ Jun 17th 2008 11:37AM]

I have to go with thedesolate1 on this one.

majortom: no one over the age of exactly 17.64 really believes they can arbitrarily define the age limitations of the lexicon.

[Ian @ Jun 17th 2008 12:39PM]

you really dont get out much then do you dude..

[DonatoM3 @ Jun 18th 2008 4:28PM]

WTH noone gave me the memo 11 years ago that I had to stop using the word "dude"

[Josh @ Jun 18th 2008 9:54PM]

I just got my first mac and love it, but i love my desktop PC too for completely different reasons - neither is perfect or better than the other, there are just trade offs so stop making it a huge deal.

This looks pretty sweet though - hopefully AMD can get on the bandwagon for these "HD" graphics before intel and nVidia otherwise they are going to be hurting for a while.

[ce @ Jun 21st 2008 12:31PM]

grapes > oranges

/begins flame war

[Rob @ Jul 12th 2008 9:46AM]

At what age do I have to stop saying "Mr. Lebowski" and give him back his rug?

"Hey, careful, man, there's a beverage here!" -- The Dude

[Sachin @ Jul 16th 2008 4:14AM]

@ majortom

Ad? What ad?
Firefox + Adblock Plus FTW.

[Sachin @ Jul 16th 2008 4:48AM]

@ majortom

Ad? What ad?
Firefox + Adblock Plus FTW.

[RC @ Jun 17th 2008 1:55AM]

Thomas, it's plainly obvious they do not mean every console produced, but one of each kind from each generation. Geez.

[Stella @ Jun 17th 2008 2:02AM]

I'm gonna go ahead and agree with RC. I think you need to work on reading comprehension a bit. I'm not saying that this is necessarily that bold of a statement, either, really. If this is over twice as fast as the previous fastest, which is twice as fast as the previous and so on, then it's mathematically going to be faster than all those before it combined. Over twice as fast isn't mind-blowing. Still it looks pretty cool.

[thedesolate1 @ Jun 17th 2008 2:07AM]

Moore's law perhaps?

[BrotherEstapol @ Jun 17th 2008 2:32AM]

Yeah, I've got to agree.
Sounds to me like they're saying it's better than a 360 + PS3 + Xbox + Wii + GCN + DC + PS2 + N64 and so on and so on.

That sounds pretty doable if you ask me.

Still, it'll be a cold day in hell when I buy an ATi card for gaming.

[A.C.E.R. @ Jun 17th 2008 2:43AM]

Thomas knows that. It's just that he's contractually obligated to include that trademark bit of Engadget snark so he had to include it somehow.

[Brad @ Jun 17th 2008 4:32AM]

I don't know. If you have an infinite number of systems and each is half as powerful as the one after it, 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16...1/n....

My god, it's EXACTLY as powerful as every gaming console to come before it!

But if that's the case, we have to sit here while assorted zealots (big-boy word for "fanboy", not just a Protoss unit) argue which of the current systems is the 1/2 and which is the 1/4. And I can't abide that.

[Goldaar @ Jun 17th 2008 12:36PM]

limit sum(1/n) from 1 to infinity approaches one, they are not equal.

[Goldaar @ Jun 17th 2008 12:37PM]

errr sum(1/(1+n)) :-) de da de

[Eric B. @ Jun 17th 2008 2:01AM]

I don't get it. Can someone explain it please

[Taylor @ Jun 17th 2008 3:10AM]

AMD/ATI are showing off their new graphics card/chipset combination which can render ultra-realistic environments.
They reckon it's as powerful, if not more powerful, than every console ever designed, combined.

[LondonConsultant @ Jun 17th 2008 4:22AM]

From the video clip, it appears this new chipset provides two amazing new graphics effects to make videos games cinema-realistic:
- de-focusing the image (to give the impression of a focus-puller hunting for the correct position);
- shaking the image (to give the impression of hand-held camera operation, without a Glidecam).

[Dillon @ Jun 17th 2008 2:03AM]

Those graphics are so uberly uber that we may need to find another word meaning super in another language to describe them.

[robjennings @ Jun 17th 2008 2:05AM]

Oberly? Perhaps you've already found the work you're looking for.

[robjennings @ Jun 17th 2008 2:06AM]

My comment barely made sense. I think it might be time for bed. Sorry.

[gad get @ Jun 17th 2008 2:16AM]

@ robjennings

I LOL-ed at your comment! Please post comments on Engadget while sleep-deprived more often.

[robjennings @ Jun 17th 2008 2:03AM]

You really misunderstood the statement from AMD. "... more powerful than every generation of game console ever brought to market combined" does not mean they claim that it's more powerful than every game console on the planet combined, it just means it's more powerful than a combination of one of every type of game console ever sold. The term "brought to market" means "researched, developed and marketed".