NVIDIA demos Kal-El quadcore gaming/graphics prowess [Video]

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NVIDIA has been teasing us with its next-gen Tegra chipset, codenamed Kal-El, since February, and now the company has demonstrated just what sort of thing a quad-core CPU, twelve-core GPU SoC is capable of when you slap it into an Android Honeycomb tablet. A homegrown game, Glowball, shows how the four cores can crunch through real-time dynamic lighting in a way that would bring a dual-core like Tegra 2 to its knees.

The game basically involves rolling an illuminated ball around an arena of interactive jack-in-the-boxes, curtains and barrels; hitting the boxes in the right order allows you to move on to the next level. The interesting thing, though, is the  arena itself: the ball gives off an internal light that’s projected through the patterns on its surface, and they’re all calculated in real-time rather than being preset animations. That allows you to change the light, brightness and pattern and see it all take place in real-time.
Meanwhile, the curtains and barrels react to movement of the tablet’s accelerometer, fluttering and tumbling as you’d expect them to in real life. NVIDIA has added the ability to virtually shut down two of the cores, to show the stuttering, jerky mess you’d get if you attempted dynamic lighting on a current-gen dual-core chip.
NVIDIA expect to release Glowball into the Android Market when Kal-El based devices go on sale, itself planned to take place later in 2011.

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NVIDIA KAL-EL Quad-Core Processor on Track for 2011

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And yes, Nexus 3 is going to exist. Are they going to intersect? That’s what the Android forums are abuzz with, but as the NVIDIA Q1 2011 gives not even a clue about such a thing, I’m going to go ahead and call fluff. I’ve got a very informed exclusive quote from an industry official below on the matter, and that should clear everything up for everyone. Meanwhile this news that KAL-EL will be coming out this year isn’t exactly new either since all the way back at the initial announcement during Mobile World Congress 2011 a within-the-year timeframe was the plan.

Yesterday was the day that NVIDIA’s earnings call for quarter 1 of 2011 took place, and the quotes in questions are the following, the first spoken by none other than Jen-Hsun Huang:

“We’re working very closely with Google on Ice Cream Sandwich, and it’s a very important new generation of operating system based on starting from the Honeycomb base and I’m expecting it to be really terrific. And so we’re working very closely with the Google team, and Tegra will be surely be wonderful for Ice Cream when it comes.”

What does that tell us? That that NVIDIA’s future and present chips will work with Ice Cream Sandwich. This should not be seen as new news as Ice Cream Sandwich, Google says, has no new hardware requirements, and will be able to be applied to older devices without a problem once it’s released. Earlier in the call there was an announcement that “project KAL-EL based tablets [will be] hitting consumer shelves later this year.” Next, a question and answer:

Alex Gauna – JMP Securities LLC
I don’t want to get too far ahead as my follow-up chance, and I was wondering, in addition to 3.1 at Google I/O, Ice Cream Sandwich was center stage. And I was wondering how that does or does not intersect with your quad core Kal-El? And the complexities of what Google is trying to do and what that means for your quad core technology?
Jen-Hsun Huang
We’re really excited about the work that they’re doing on Ice Cream. And I can’t comment too much more other than that, but we’re working very closely with their teams on the Ice Cream Sandwich. And as all of these products — they will come to the market when they’re great, and I’m certainly expecting them to be great on this year.

So Android 3.1, Ice Cream Sandwich, and KAL-EL will be released this year. None of this should come as a surprise as each of these projects have been announced previously, each of them with a 2011 projection built in. Now for the most important quote, this one from a personal friend of mine, Susi Burns, my dog:

“Yes, another Nexus device will be coming out some time in the future. There will also be more Android devices, more computers will be produced this year, and I will also need to be taken outside for a bathroom break some time in the next 24 hours”

I’d like at this point to thank SeekingAlpha for their helpful transcript of the NVIDIA sales call. Also if you’d like to know the potential power of this newest chipset from NVIDIA, head to our Benchmark Post.

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