First, it was a bitter sweet day for NVIDIA yesterday. In this article written by Tom’s Hardware, NVIDIA’s stock plunged (yes PLUNGED) by 21.94% or $3.95 to $14.08 a share on news that some of their notebook GPUs are failing because of “thermal issues”. This is the biggest drop NVIDIA has experienced in the last four years.
These chip failures will cause NVIDIA to absorb a $150 to $200 million charge this quarter to cover warranty repair and return replacement. To add insult to injury, NVIDIA sales are a bit lower than analysts’ expectations this quarter.
However, also reported by Tom’s Hardware, is NVIDIA is expected to release DirectX 10.1 GPU support by first quarter 2009 for notebooks and potentially fourth quarter 2008 for desktops. Looks like the GPU market is going through some interesting times!
Now, enough with the boring stuff! Reliable sources have informed us that the next version of the iZ3D LLC drivers will not be coming out for at least another month to a month and a half. The reason is iZ3D has established new business relationships with multiple “large sized” industry players who need the drivers “modified” for their purposes. According to our sources, this deal will change the stereoscopic 3D gaming landscape as we know it.
Depending on progress, it is possible that an announcement will be made at this year’s SIGGRAPH in Los Angeles.
One more thing! Chris Satchel, General Manager for XNA shared a few words about stereoscopic 3D gaming at Gameindustry.biz. Read our response HERE.