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Community News:
1. Check out the benefits of the Intel Software Partner Program
2. Register for the Graphics Checker Webinar!
3. New Whitepaper : New Intel Center Driving the Future of Visual Computing
4. New whitepaper : CPU Onloading
5. Check out tools, resources for game development and what we are doing with our developer days!

Questions :

1. Tell us about your role at Intel
2. What is the Partner Program and what is Intel trying to do with the SAT tools
3. How do Graphics Checker 3.0 & Intel GPA work together to help game developers?
4. What added benefit do developers/ISVs get by uploading their game playability report to ISPP?
5. Where can developers go to find more information?

I am always looking for community feedback and questions. You can email them to visualizethis@intel.com or provide on twiter @artigupta

You can watch Visualize This! live alternate Tuesdays at noon Pacific on Intel Software Network TV, our new 24/7 interactive video channel. Come chat with us, or browse the On Demand section to see past episodes of our shows.

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Community News:
1. OpenCL SDK beta is now live on the Visual Computing community. You can download it here
2. We have published CPU Onloading: Leveraging the PC Platform
3. Another new whitepaper Practical Intel® AVX Optimization on 2nd generation Intel® Core™ Processors

Questions :

1. Tell us about Confetti
2. Confetti has become one of the earliest providers of advanced graphics middleware tools for Intel’s Sandy Bridge architecture. What was the gap that you were trying to fill?
3. What are some of the challenges you faced while building this engine
4. What is CPU MLAA?
5. Describe some of your other middleware packages like Dynamic Skydome, PostFX, Global Illumination Approach
6. Any tips for game developers?

I am always looking for community feedback and questions. You can email them to visualizethis@intel.com or provide on twiter @artigupta

You can watch Visualize This! live alternate Tuesdays at noon Pacific on Intel Software Network TV, our new 24/7 interactive video channel. Come chat with us, or browse the On Demand section to see past episodes of our shows.

Now, having won the approval of the masses these gamers were asked some questions. The goal was to help better understand some appeals of how they buy games, what they like and what they want developers to know. Some of the questions asked were:
1. What factors in to your decision when purchasing a game?
2. How important are graphics?
3. Have you ever bought a new PC just to play a game?
4. If your PC is newer are you more likely to buy games?
5. What would you like developers to know?
6. What makes for an epic game?

Check out the video created at the event to see how the gamers answered these questions here

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Community News:
1. OpenCL SDK beta is now live on the Visual Computing community. You can download it here
2. We have published part 2 of dynamics and particle effects by Audri Phillips herself. Check it out, I am sure Audri will appreciate your feedback.

Questions :
1. Tell us about yourself, you are very involved in this industry, what are you working on?
2. You have been in this industry for a long time, how has the use of the computer by artists changed?
3. The area of visual computing is changing drastically, what new immersive technologies are most exciting to you? And why?
4. You have written articles on particle effects on the Intel community, what are some of the challenges in this area? Does the advent of multi core systems with immense computing power, help?
5. Realistic hair and fur is also another big challenge facing computer graphics artists and programmers. How can game developers / artists create realistic looking hair?
6. Typically it is thought that once an artist always an artist, do you think the skills learnt in this area can be transferred to other industries?

I am always looking for community feedback and questions. You can email them to visualizethis@intel.com or provide on twiter @artigupta

You can watch Visualize This! live alternate Tuesdays at noon Pacific on Intel Software Network TV, our new 24/7 interactive video channel. Come chat with us, or browse the On Demand section to see past episodes of our shows.

If you remove the Avast anti virus software completely from the Control Panel, then reboot and trying to run Intel GPA again, it should work. We know this is an issue with Avast 5.1.889. Our GPA team is working on fixing this in the next release but till then hope this information helps folks using GPA and are running into this issue.

If you still see issues you can get support in our forums

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Community News:
1. Dynamics and Particle Effects, Part 1 is now available - this is the first part of this series.
2. We released the beta version of the Media SDK 3.0. You can check out its features and download it here
3. We continue to add new Sandy bridge related content. CHeck it out on the microsite
4. Download the OpenCL SDK here

Questions :
1. What is heterogeneous computing, and what is OpenCL?
2. What is Intel's contribution to OpenCL and who else in the industry is involved?
3. Why and when should developers use OpenCL? Which type of customers are most interested in this spec?
4. Why do you think OpenCL can be relevant for game developers?
5. What is OpenCL like to program? Is the code compiled differently?
6. What are the advantages in writing OpenCL for CPU?
7. Similarly, what is the relationship between OpenCL and DirextX or Cuda?
8. Where can developers find more information?

I am always looking for community feedback and questions. You can email them to visualizethis@intel.com or provide on twiter @artigupta

You can watch Visualize This! live alternate Tuesdays at noon Pacific on Intel Software Network TV, our new 24/7 interactive video channel. Come chat with us, or browse the On Demand section to see past episodes of our shows.

Download Link - High Quality MP4 Video File (Large)

Community News:
1. We released the beta version of the Media SDK 3.0. You can check out its features and download it here
2. Fluid Simulation Part 9 is now available - this is the last part of the very popular whitepaper series
3. We continue to add new Sandy bridge related content. CHeck it out on the microsite

Questions :
1. Tell us about yourself and Neuron games
2. Tell us about Cortex 3.1 which I believe is now complete. What does it bring to developers? How does it differentiate itself from other products on the market and how it is different from Super Cortex?
3. You mentioned this is for Windows phone too, tell us where you think the mobile platform is going for gaming?
4. Shifting gears to your new game Megaloptura, what inspired this game?
5. What are some of the challenges you face during your development process? Any tips for game developers?
6. Megaloptura is going to be available on both PC and XBOX 360. Any challenges in developing for 2 platforms?

I am always looking for community feedback and questions. You can email them to visualizethis@intel.com or provide on twiter @artigupta

You can watch Visualize This! live alternate Tuesdays at noon Pacific on Intel Software Network TV, our new 24/7 interactive video channel. Come chat with us, or browse the On Demand section to see past episodes of our shows.

Download these drivers by using Microsoft Internet Explorer* to browse to the graphics driver update page. This page runs a script that examines your system configuration, then updates the Intel® Integrated Graphics drivers to the latest version. If this automatic graphics driver update process does not work, you can manually search for the drivers by browsing to the Intel Download Center, and then searching for your specific graphics chipset.

For non-Intel graphics, check with the vendor of the graphics card for the latest drivers.
In addition to getting the latest graphics drivers, you might want to verify that you have the latest BIOS installed -- the vendor's site it usually the best place to find the latest BIOS release.

For more information regarding installation, configuration, and usage of the Intel GPA product, visit the Intel GPA home page and the GPA Knowledge Base articles. There are also some very detailed help videos on using Intel GPA.

Download Link - High Quality MP4 Video File (Large)

Community News:
1. Fluid Simulation Part 9 is now available - this is the last part of the very popular whitepaper series
2. We continue to add new Sandy bridge related content. CHeck it out on the microsite

Questions :
• Tell us about your role at Intel

I joined Intel for the larrabee project, I thought it was a bold move and was impressed by Intel’s commitment to graphics and thinking outside of the box.

I have now moved to working on graphics samples for Visual Computing, and am a combination of Program Manager and Producer for the Intel Gaming and Graphics Samples, that can be found from the Visual Computing web site. These include features that take advantage of Intel CPUs as well as Intel Processor graphics capabilities.

• What we are doing with the samples team

Intel has a dedicated samples team with artists, to let us create samples that are both visually appealing and that have algorithms that are useful to practicing game ISVs.

• What defines a sample, versus a collection or explorer

A sample contains a single algorithm for a single area, whether its mult-core or graphics focused.

An explorer contains multiple algorithms and presents a way to compare and contrast the results of each algorithm in terms of visual quality and computational costs. Some games have more head-room than others, so runtime cost is always an important metric.

• What comes with a sample ( code, whitepaper, abstract, screenshots, video )

The most important part of a sample is the source code. The next most critical element is the whitepaper, explaining the algorithm. Then we plan for having developer videos and the web page includes an abstract and some representative screenshots.

• How you come up with ideas and general charter

We have several paths we follow for sample idea generation.

Intel has a relationship with many key gaming ISVs on the PC platform, and the Intel engineers who work with the ISVs often come back with ideas based on issues real game engineers need solved.

We also study papers at GDC and SIGGRAPH and mine that material for sample ideas.

And our engineers have their own ideas too.

So that’s at least 3 different paths.

• What is coming down the line this year? What is Ivy Bridge going to bring for game developers?

We have more graphics and multi-core samples coming, until they are a bit further along I don’t want to say too much, but you could expect post processing, texturing, terrain, that sort of thing

Ivy Bridge is going to be an exciting product. It supports full DX11, compute shader support, more AVX, HDMI 1.4, PCI 3 for across the board bandwidth boost.

• Where to get the samples

From visual computing page, the graphics samples are on 2 pages, the Samples page and the Sandy Bridge page.

• How can people send you input on sample ideas/improvements

The best way is to make comments on the sample pages , or in the forums, and if there is feedback we need a direct email, we could add that. Please tell us and we will make it happen.

I am always looking for community feedback and questions. You can email them to visualizethis@intel.com or provide on twiter @artigupta

You can watch Visualize This! live alternate Tuesdays at noon Pacific on Intel Software Network TV, our new 24/7 interactive video channel. Come chat with us, or browse the On Demand section to see past episodes of our shows.

1. First we announced Intel GPA 4.0, the newest version of the graphics performance analyzer which provides among a number of new features
◦New workflows simplify analyzing games
◦Microsoft DirectX* 11 support allows more games to be analyzed and optimized with the product
◦Fully-configurable triggers to automatically capture frame or trace files (for example, "capture all frames that are slower than 20 FPS")
◦Screenshot thumbnails provided for frame capture files, providing a visual queue for which frame to analyze
◦New "how to" help videos assist both new users and seasoned veterans to more quickly take advantage of the new release

2. Secondly we released a new sample code called Shadow Explorer. This sample, Shadow Explorer, lets the user compare and contrast four different algorithms, adjust various parameters for each one, and observe the effects on performance in real-time.

3. I also interviewed a number of our partners and users of Intel technologies like Blizzard, Atari, Codemasters. Here are the specific interviews you can listen to and provide feedback/questions :
Blizzard
Cloakworks
Atari/Bedlam Studios
Emotional Robots
Sega/Creative Assembly
Uber
NCSoft
Reallusion
Saber Interactive
Codemasters

4. There are number of shorter interviews we taped with key partners and players in the game development area. Check them out here

5. And there were a number of blog posts by Intel experts. They would love your feedback or questions!

My guest is Rick Raymo - Director Game Content, Saber Interactive.

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Questions :
1. Tell us about your role and Saber Interactive
2. Before we get into discussing Inversion and Battle LA, can you talk about how Saber Interactive was founded?
3. I believe you also have a very geographically dispersed team, how do you make that work effectively?
4. You are releasing Battle LA next week (I read the release date as 3/11), tell us what makes this game stand out? (you can also refer to the release style here) 5. Another upcoming game is Inversion which has what I think is something like a gravity manipulation engine? Was making it work on a multiple platforms any harder?
6. You also use Havok extensively, how does that help in making the gameplay more compelling?
7. You have a very high tech engine, what makes it stand out from others?
8. What has your experience been optimizing for Intel platforms?
9. I read you are working on a big name game? Anything you can share?

I am always looking for community feedback and questions. You can email them to visualizethis@intel.com or provide on twiter @artigupta

You can watch Visualize This! live alternate Tuesdays at noon Pacific on Intel Software Network TV, our new 24/7 interactive video channel. Come chat with us, or browse the On Demand section to see past episodes of our shows.

My guest is John Martin VP Product Marketing at Reallusion.

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Questions :
1. Tell us about your self and Reallusion
2. Reallusion has a number of products for photo editing, video conversion, 3d Animation. Tell us how these products help in game development or enabling better quality media?
3. You also have apps for the iphone, how is the development cycle different for the PC vs the iphone platform?
4. You also have a social network site called City. What is this and how do you help developers using City? (I believe you let them sell products that have used Reallusion products).
5. How have you worked with Intel?

I am always looking for community feedback and questions. You can email them to visualizethis@intel.com or provide on twiter @artigupta

You can watch Visualize This! live alternate Tuesdays at noon Pacific on Intel Software Network TV, our new 24/7 interactive video channel. Come chat with us, or browse the On Demand section to see past episodes of our shows.

My guest is Ross Borden - Senior Vice President, NCsoft.

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Questions :
1. Tell us about your role @ NCSoft.
2. You recently enabled Aion for the new Sandy Bridge architecture. What has your experience been so far?
3. NCSoft has purchased Intel Xeon based servers, how are you planning to use these?
4. Lets talk about City of Heroes, where are you going with the game?
5. Another big title from NCSoft(ArenaNet) is Guild Wars, any thoughts on when it is releasing?
6. If you were to talk about the 2 biggest features of Guild Wars 2, what would they be?

I am always looking for community feedback and questions. You can email them to visualizethis@intel.com or provide on twiter @artigupta

You can watch Visualize This! live alternate Tuesdays at noon Pacific on Intel Software Network TV, our new 24/7 interactive video channel. Come chat with us, or browse the On Demand section to see past episodes of our shows.

My guest is Jon Mavor CTO Uber Entertainment.

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Questions :
1. Tell us about your role @ Uber
2. You recently tested Monday Night Combat on Intel’s new Sandy bridge hardware. What did you think of the results?
3. Now that you had a chance to play with Sandy Bridge architecture,where do you see HD graphics going? What excites you about the product lineup we have coming up?
4. You have probably done optimization for multi and many core. This is still an area of learning for a lot of game developers, any suggestions on BKMs to other game developers?
5. What was the most exciting part of working on Monday Night Combat?

I am always looking for community feedback and questions. You can email them to visualizethis@intel.com or provide on twiter @artigupta

You can watch Visualize This! live alternate Tuesdays at noon Pacific on Intel Software Network TV, our new 24/7 interactive video channel. Come chat with us, or browse the On Demand section to see past episodes of our shows.

My guest is James Russell Lead Designer for the Total War series.

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Questions :

1. Tell us about your background and role at CA?
2. I understand that your team follows a creative/fluid/out of the box design process, can you tell us more?
3. Given that the Total War series has moved throught different lands and eras, what is different that Shogun 2 brings to the game play?
4. What were some of the learnings from Napolean?
5. Due to the size of the TW engine you have been refining it vs re-writing. What advantages has this brought? How do you work with Intel engineers?
6. What do you see coming next for the TW series?

I am always looking for community feedback and questions. You can email them to visualizethis@intel.com or provide on twiter @artigupta

You can watch Visualize This! live alternate Tuesdays at noon Pacific on Intel Software Network TV, our new 24/7 interactive video channel. Come chat with us, or browse the On Demand section to see past episodes of our shows.