Wireless GeForce Graphics Card Announced 202
arcticstoat writes "PC gamers who are sick of being constantly distracted by whirring fans could now have a helping hand from a new wireless graphics card. Galaxy sub-brand KFA2 has announced a graphics card with no display outputs. Instead, the KFA2 GTX 460 WHDI uses a wireless link to send the display output from your PC to your screen, whether that's a conventional monitor or the HD TV in your lounge. You just need to attach the bundled receiver to the back of your chosen screen and you're done. With a wireless keyboard and mouse, you could place your PC at the other end of the room, letting you crank up those fans without having to listen to the whirring next to you."
Encryption? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Encryption? (Score:5, Informative)
From TFA, it supports HDCP 2.0 - so it's encrypting that content, at least.
You'll need to set HDCP policies for your donkey porn from now on. (Please)
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Now that would be good use of HDCP that is not related to DRM at all. Of course, to be useful, it would have to be always on.
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The article does say that
The WHDI standard supports HDCP 2.0, so it can route protected content (Blu-ray films, for example) without a problem.
However, the device outputs uncompressed / unmodified video. This means if the video is protected or encrypted, it will be safe, otherwise you're sending out in the clear.
Re:Encryption? (Score:5, Funny)
"Are you supposed to broadcast your donkey porn to the neighbor in the open?"
Your ideas intrigue me and I would like to subscribe to your video feed.
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I'm pretty sure it'll have that.
Otherwise I could set up my own tv station - at least for a limited range. And nobody* wants that.
*MPAA
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Perfect for use in a building with a communal cable/aerial system, such as a high-rise apartment block. That's where most of the pirate radio stations would start up.
Re:Encryption? (Score:5, Funny)
I don't see anything about encryption. Are you supposed to broadcast your donkey porn to the neighbor in the open?
You're not supposed to, but it is appreciated.
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I don't see anything about encryption. Are you supposed to broadcast your donkey porn to the neighbor in the open?
Just make sure the first few seconds of video you play are a Carrot Top video. Nobody will be watching after that. Ever.
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Are you supposed to broadcast your donkey porn to the neighbor in the open?
Why not? Public Service is good.
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Valid point. Next nitpick:
A fairly powerful graphics card is roughly 300 bucks. I'm not talking about the insane bleeding edge ones, but just one that can hold its own and play pretty much anything out there (except flight simulator) with all the sliders up full. Add wireless to that, and the "Ohh, wireless video card new shiny!" aspect to that and I figure you'll jack the price by at least $100.
So now I can either spend $400 not to hear my fans, or I can spend $150-250 for a high quality case with quiet fa
More sensible option (Score:3)
If noise is your only reason for doing this, just get a decent pair of in-ear or fully enclosed headphones.
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Yep, it's a cool tech, but I think the ideal use is for tidy HTPC or presentation type setups, rather than gaming. It's an option of course, but I'd rather spend the money elsewhere.
Re:More sensible option (Score:4, Insightful)
For less money, you can get some sound-dampening parts for your case and have the best of all worlds. Some silicone grommets, a little foam, and some bigger fans can do wonders for noise. I can barely hear the difference between my PC being on or off.
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I first read that as "For less money, you can get some sound-dampening pants for your case"
for a nano second, my brain scratched it's beard and went "hmmm".
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You may be on to something. An additional plus is those silicone grommets are pretty squishy and covering my backside in them sounds pretty comfy. We should patent this.
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Quite right, many people do this. Search for quite PC/silent PC.
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Or a 15-foot long HDMI cable from Monoprice or a similar discount supplier. Seems much cheaper and not as subject to RF interference.
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Exactly, I have a 25' HDMI cable running from my PC in my bedroom to my Denon receiver in my living room. Then another 20' HDMI cable running from my receiver to my projector. Also have a 30' USB cable running from my PC to a hub under my couch where I connect various peripherals as well as my wireless mouse/keyboard receiver.
Even when I don't close the door to my bedroom I can't hear it anymore.
Cost of High-speed 22GA HDMI cable is only a dollar a foot on Monoprice.
Re:More sensible option (Score:5, Insightful)
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I got a case with a mesh top, and a ridiculous zalman heatsink [newegg.com]. Installed the heatsink so that the cpu fan pointed up and out of the case (through the open top), and the case fans hardly ever turn on at all.
My only problem is that the cat likes to sleep on top of the case now, but the case fan kicking in scares him off.
usb turret + kinect = autoturret!!! (Score:5, Funny)
If you were a REAL hacker type you'd get one of those USB nerf turret thingies, and a Kinect, and write a program to scan for your cat's heat signature and blast it every time it comes nearby. (or maybe a $10 spygear motion alarm would be cheaper, but nearly as cool)
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K.I.S.S.
All you need is a second mesh, a spring, and a piece of wire running from the power supply to the top mesh and another running from the bottom mesh to the fan. Cat sits on computer, fan comes on. Simple and elegant.
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Even simpler:
Put spikes on the top of the case. Cat will not sit on computer twice.
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For a second I thought these were plans to electrify the cat. You know...two meshes, bottom electrified. Cat sits on top, completes connection, zap.
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that's exactly what I was thinking. He started off on the right track, but then got all soft. same materials + a capacitor, slightly different wiring plan.
I think you are all missing the point .. (Score:2)
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You're doing it wrong: SSDs don't spin.
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Yes, an SSD works wonderfully for storing frequently-accessed data, like the OS or always-running programs. However, I have yet to find a hard drive that can fit all my data that doesn't cost a small fortune. At some point, the diminishing returns outweigh the cost - sure, I could cut the noise by 5db and access my photos 20% faster, but it would cost more than a small car.
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You could put your bulky data on a networked drive in the basement and use the SSD for your regular computing.
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I would go the route of SSD in the system, not-frequently-accessed data stored on a NAS. But that's just me....
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Could you enlighten me on how a video or audio cable are a fire hazard? I've never heard of one that didn't carry a minimal amount of DC power. I will grant you that if you have a tangle of wires including power cables that it could create a potential fire hazard.
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Or just crank up the volume on your stereo system. Who can hear case fans over realistic explosions?
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Who can hear case fans over realistic explosions
Or as Julian Taylor (Clive Owe's character) said in Children of Men, after the explosion in the coffee shop
0You know that ringing in your ears? That 'eeeeeeeeeeeee'? That's the sound of the ear cells dying, like their swan song. Once it's gone, you'll never hear that frequency again. Enjoy it while it lasts.
Besides, the point of this mission is to sneak into the building to plant the bomb. If it goes off before you get out of the compound something's gone wrong. PROTIP: listen for the sounds of the guards' footsteps, and try to avoid the patrols.
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I feel the same when it comes to most games, although for movies I do prefer being able to make out fine detail without having to move too far into ear-bleed levels.
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Calling it a remote GPU makes it sound more exciting than it is tbh. You could already do the same thing with a separate attachment, and the GPU is still inside the PC. When I first saw the headline I was imagining a separate GPU module. Of course such a thing would be rather slow anyway compared to a local card.
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That works for us, but I've heard of a curious trend amongst the lusers to actually invite _others_ into their local meatspace proximity. Like not sycing their viewing experience and then commenting on the film via IRC but using actual outdated verbal communication. Very odd behavior, but then, they are lusers and not really expected to follow normal protocols.
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Sharing gaming or browsing experiences on a PC at a desk in one of the less usual scenarios, and to me the summary sounded like it was talking of a machine designed for induhviduals.
For a movie or local multiplayer you want a large TV setup, which is a different matter. There are many silent or near silent options for boxes to put under your TV and watch movies, and either stream from your computer or online services, all of which are nicer to use than a PC.
I have 2 consoles HDTV, speakers and headphones in
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Uhhhh... if they're fully enclosed, how can you hear anything from them?
There's a word for that: circumaural.
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Yes, I didn't know the technical term. They fully enclose your ears anyway. I have some half open (meshed) ones.
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Sometimes they're described as "over-the-ear" headphones when the audience is afraid of fifty-cent words. "Fully enclosing" might have been a rephrasing less prone to misinterpretation and fun-poking. What a difference a suffix makes!
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Are those just for the case, or is one for the GPU too? It seems to me a lot more hassle than just plugging in some headphones. This is assuming the machine is only really used for games.
If the PC is also used for movies (where I do prefer speakers, though headphones are okay) then of course fan noise is incredibly annoying, so improving the cooling would make sense. Or, stick with headphones for gaming (really great for positional sound), and get something like GoogleTV/AppleTV/WDTV etc to stream the movie
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Personally I just use a netbook and my phone for browsing, and do everything else on my PS3 slim, which handles all my gaming
Provided that the game you want to play is even available for PS3.
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This is true. I just remembered that I also bought an Xbox 360 in November though so altogether I can probably play most things. Forgot I even had it because I've spent the last month playing GT5. I only got the 360 to play online with certain friends, not even for the exclusives.
Finally! (Score:4, Funny)
No more liquid nitrogen i my room!
Why do I need this again? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Try playing an RPG while sat on your sofa and see how easy reading the text is. The only are where this may not count is console ports, but even then the UI is sometimes badly scaled and unreadable. Further, consider that the average PC monitor has a much higher resolution com
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Saying that, though, I bet for the same price (or a little more) than you'd pay on decent air cooling for your gaming rig + this card, you could water cool the whole thing and have it make less noise than your mouse moving over the desk surface.
So long as you're taking this into consideration while building the machine, it's probably true. If it's an upgrade then the wireless video card might make more sense. Or, you know, a cooled, filtered, muffled enclosure.
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The problem isn't design. The problem is you need a better TV, or the TV you have should be located closer to your couch.
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This is the major difference between PC and console gaming.
Other differences include 2. cost per player and 3. selection. PC multiplayer is usually LAN or online, and setting up a LAN party is far more expensive than buying extra controllers. In addition, not all developers have the clout to get their games onto the consoles.
One reason (not fans) (Score:2)
Years ago as a capstone project for college, myself and a few friends set up a media PC, web server, and PDA (Dell Axiom 3i) to allow us to use the PDA as a remote for the TV and Media PC.
It worked, and worked rather well IMO. But you can imagine the hassle and costs associated with setting up such a set up.
Using this technology, I could effectively strip it down to a single media PC. Sure, I'd lose the ability to set record schedules on my media PC from work, but I never really used that feature anyway ;)
G
Unlicensed spectrum, eh? (Score:5, Interesting)
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I was thinking the exact same thing only in regards to just me. What if I want to run dual monitors? Are they going to interfere with each other? To me this just seems like a solution in search of a problem.
Compressed Compression (Score:5, Informative)
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AFAICS it's robust, not lossy by default.
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As they explain it there is simply more redundancy for more significant bits.
Yay, more Input Lag (Score:3, Insightful)
Input lags of over 50ms, here we go!
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50ms? When I ping my desktop from my laptop over WiFi the results says 1ms.
If you use a regular USB mouse, then the polling rate is 125hz or 8ms of input lag. The fastest 1000hz mice are 1ms then. Your video card is also set to render 3 frames ahead by default which can be between 0-50ms there (this can be set to 0 though). And finally, unless you are using a CRT, your LCD probably adds somewhere between 5-50ms of framebuffer input lag.
I really don't see how 1ms of wireless lag will be noticeable.
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Pinging is all fine and good, but try to transfer a, lets say, 1920x1080, 24bit color frame over WiFi, first with then without compression, then measure how long did that take. Now do 60 frames consecutively. If you can fit it in 1ms, without encryption and even with some form of compression, I'll be very, very impressed, then ask how long since you came from the future.
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Intrinsically, lag involves both input and output. It's the delay between you performing input and perceiving the output.
Last piece (Score:5, Insightful)
If display can be detached from computers, then forget about tablets, notebooks, or even smartphones. You have "the box" somewhere in your house and from any place you can have alternate input and output devices to work with it, you want a tablet? something to work in a desk? Using your tv set? All can have the same computer behind, and you could use the best interface for what you need to do.
If that becomes portable or wearable, same could go for mobile computing, and you could interact with the IO device you have with you, be smartglasses, something of the size of a phone or a tablet, or even some kind of sixth sense [ted.com] technology
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Yes, this is probably the best use for this technology today; you carry the display and wireless input device(s) and the computer sits in one place. If the display is big enough to sit on a desk but small and light enough to be carried around then you win, otherwise, there is no point.
I agree that reality overlay is the desired goal; I don't see any reason you couldn't use this technology for a HMD, although for now you're going to need an external pack on a lead.
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Yes, people call this "a home network".
Wrong market - Wrong target audience (Score:5, Insightful)
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WHDI only uses a single 40MHz channel to do 1080p60. How they achieve spectral efficiencies that high is beyond me, but that's what their spec says.
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The kiosk segment is covered by low cost ultra-portables. All you need is a power cord and you can load the videos via USB or Wifi. And they would not be using your whole available spectrum for video.
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That's taking a sledge hammer to a nail. The electronics to receive, process, and decode wireless video would be far more powerful and expensive than the 10 Mhz processor required to display text. The processor in the ipad costs ~20 dollars to put it into perspective.
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This baby is not for gamers or engineers. It's for marketing and sales.
... and home AV. Even a modest TV/DVR/DVD/surround setup involves an awful mess of wires. We seem to be moving towards a world where everything except power can be wireless, which will make everything much neater (instead making an invisible mess in the RF spectrum :) )
Maybe things have changed... (Score:2)
Yay! (Score:2)
Perfect Solution for a Gaming Laptop (Score:3)
The first thing that came to mind was potential use with a laptop. You could switch from built-in video to this for 3D gaming and use your HDTV for the picture (being that 1080p is as large as almost all laptops ever get anyways).
Done correctly, you could manage to have a $400 budget laptop for normal use and when you want to play games, sit it on your coffee table, sync it up, and presto. No need to spend $1300 on an Alienware or similar rig.
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And just where would you put the graphics card?
It needs to be put in a PC.
It's just that's it's got wireless output instead of wired output.
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Surely some modification of this could be done to where you use wireless or a cable to the video card which is attached to the monitor? All it really needs is a 12V power supply with 150-200W output. You'd just need a large transmitter at the laptop. Considering that even most basic video cards these days vastly outclass laptop video solutions, it seems a good way to kill two birds with one stone. Wireless(or maybe firewire/etc from the laptop via a docking station) and then a nice passively cooled card
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And that's something entirely different from this product.
If you want something like this, you could simply use a remote server on your home network to do the graphics rendition.
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I was thinking of something like the ASUS XG or ATI XGP, where you just attach a simple cable to your laptop and the card in the monitor takes over. No huge dock, either - just a normal Firewire sized cable would likely be enough.
(both of which as of today are vapor-ware)
I know that wireless/infrared/etc isn't at the level where it can handle a PCIe bus's connection, but that seems to be a matter of tweaking the technology more than anything else. ie - making a faster link via multiplexing or similar is va
more latency! yay! (Score:2)
You hit the nail on the head (Score:2)
Bigger PVA LCD panels already introduce significant input lag to the point where its noticeable to the avid gamer, with a difference of only ~40ms to TN panels. This would add a very significant number to a system that is already very close to the breaking point. An above poster mentioned that this would be good for trade shows or marketing displays, which seems to be significantly better application. Marketing based on fan noise is pretty rediculous when water-cooled systems are already economical.
I'll believe it when... (Score:3)
Ceiling-Mounted Projectors (Score:2)
In my opinion, the killer app for this is connection to ceiling-mounted projectors. Not only is it a pain in the ass to find a long video cable to connect a computer to a ceiling mounted projector, you also end up with an unsightly cable running up your wall and across your ceiling. Now there's a reasonable solution for media PC's etc.
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Then you would have... TV!
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the card breaks. now you have to buy another to get your wireless back again.
How often do video cards ever break? Especially modern ones that have sensors to detect heat (in case the fan breaks). The only time I have had a card that was broken was when some of the pins on the connector got bent, which obviously will not happen in this case.
otoh, if the vendors were smart this would be card-neutral and simply take hdmi or dvi and make that a wireless peer-to-peer link.
I am sure that the vendors would love to make an adaptor that can use used on their competitor's cards too. I can see why it might be possible that the wireless link would perform better if the cards were tailored to use that interface rather than
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How often do video cards ever break? Especially modern ones that have sensors to detect heat (in case the fan breaks).
Mine broke a couple of months ago. It was about 2-3 years old.
Wrong Solution? Yes, but here's a better reason (Score:3)
This solution bundles the graphics adaptor with the sending of screens.
Yes, that's wrong. But its wrong because it sends too much data. The WORST amount of data is the screen itself. However, the graphics card itself takes information and generates that screen. For example, texture mapping. Why send all that texture data? Instead, send it once!
The idea would be to send higher level graphics commands via wireless, and then generate the actual screens at the device. An external, wireless graphics card. Now, t
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There's an apocryphal story that in the halls of residence where I went to university, some years before I was there, someone hooked the UHF output of his VCR to his room's radiator, and thus broadcast porn to anyone in the halls who cared to connect their TV's aerial socket to their own radiator.
An electrical engineer has explained to me why this story can't possibly be true -- but it's cute anyway.
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I hardly think LCD latency is a problem these days, my current 24" monitor has a response time of 2ms and it cost me £199.