NVIDIA Optimus is a new bit of Blue Sky thinking from the graphics guru which promises to give beefy, high power laptops a major boost in battery life. How does it work, and what does it mean for you? Read on and we’ll explain.
The chances are, you’ve owned or used a laptop with a separate chipset for dealing with graphics, aside from the processor, whether it’s a 17-inch MacBook Pro or a netbook with NVIDIA Ion graphics for HD video playback.
But until now, you’ve had to switch between separate or integrated graphics in the power management settings, and either restart, or wait for the the GPU and screen to kick in. And even when it’s not being used, it’s still draining battery in a big way, which is why gaming laptops have such poor stamina, even when word processing.
NVIDIA Optimus is the company’s solution, and having seen it demoed in the flesh, we can say it’s a good one. New laptops that support it can flick seamlessly between using the GPU and not, and the smart part is that when it’s off, it draws no power at all. In other words, ripping a DVD on Handbrake will still eat up battery life as quickly as ever, but that same laptop will last much longer when you’re just surfing the web, busting out emails or idling the time away with Minesweeper.
NVIDIA: 2010 a tablet “revolution”
We saw NVIDIA Optimus working on the new Asus UL50-Vf, and there really was no pause between graphics flicking on or off. The machine knows when to fire the GPU up via a collection of profiles of common applications NVIDIA has compiled, and will recognise when web browser is using the latest version of Flash, which supports graphics acceleration (Hello HD iPlayer).
What we like most about NVIDIA Optimus is the potential it has to transform two sectors especially. It means that gaming laptops, previously juice sucking monsters, can now have perfectly reasonable battery life so long as you’re not playing Crysis, as it will work with a range of powerful NVIDIA graphics setups.
But NVIDIA Optimus will also work with the new Intel Pine Trail platform, which most new netbooks are running on. That means you’ll be able to get the graphical power of something like the power hungry and Ion infused Asus Eee PC 1201N, which can stream HD Flash video, with the maximum battery life of something like the Eee PC 1005HA, which can go for up to 8 hours on the trot, when you’re just surfing the web or writing word docs. In other words, the only limiting factor now for HD video supporting netbooks is cost.
NVIDIA’s general manager for notebook products, Rene A Haas, wouldn’t confirm any partners beyond Asus and Medion for the new NVIDIA Optimus tech, but did reveal that more than 50 laptops will support it by the Summer, including those with its Ion 2 graphics in, so you can bet some big names, and some netbooks, are in the pipeline.
Out TBC | £TBC | NVIDIA
