The Nvidia Tegra roadmap has officially been leaked during the last few days and gives us an indication on where the company is taking its mobile Tegra 3 chipset.
You might notice that Nvidia Kal EL is being dropped towards the end of 2011. We met with 2 senior Nvidia representatives at Computex who gave us a technical demonstration of the prototype Nvidia Tegra 3 quad core processor. This unit was amazing featuring 12 GPU cores! The resolution for this new processor does take it to the next level with 1440p! This is two times 720p and is 1.5X better then the latest 1080p. This is indeed next level of processing power and is absolutely a very adequate progression from Tegra 2, which featured only 2 cores.
Not only will this new Nvidia Tegra 3 processor be able to handle superior resolution, but the lead engineer told us that it easily handles 3D. In general, 3D requires double the frame rate (120 frames per second) and double the pixels.
Many of the features they showed off will allow specific vendors to take advantage of some very handy new features. The Tegra 3, or Kal el, processor will allow for higher polygon count characters and scenes in video games. Often in the video games industry one of the limiting factors when developing games for consoles and PC’s is the dreaded polygon count. In order for hardware to render things properly you need to have a certain number of polygons on the screen at any given time. This includes character art, environments, and all other assets included in any given scene.
According to the Roadmap KAL EL + will be dropping in 2012 and there is no idea on what this will entail and if the + means it will be available to non-android devices. By 2012 the company is going to be splitting its Tegra department into two different areas. Wayne will be the codename for the Tegra chip focused on Linux and Android devices such as Tablets and Superphones. While Grey will be focused on Windows Tablets and Windows Phones.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
