PCinsight has put up a Q&A session with Diane Vanasse of NVIDIA.

PCi - How does NVIDIA prioritize what features are to be included in a new product?

DV - Because of our six-month cycle for the introduction of new technology we are able to consistently deliver strong products to the marketplace. And because we stick to that cycle so religiously if a feature is not ready to be included in the latest product offering, the engineers working on it know that it will be included in the next one. It´s like waiting for a subway, its not a big deal if you miss a train because there will be another one following shortly.

PCi - Does NVIDIA feel that 64-bit color is on the horizon?

DV - NVIDIA´s graphics pipelines already support >8 bits of precision internally, and of course a generalized, "deep pixel" approach is what we´ve heard developers asking for recently. John Carmack (and other key developers) have already commented that the correct solution is more general precision in the pixel pipeline, including support for "deeper color" not just in the internal pipeline, but in the frame buffer as well. NVIDIA listens to the developers, and as always, will strive to be the first graphics processor to deliver next generation features that developers want. This should come as no surprise, as NVIDIA was the first with 32-bit rendering, transform and lighting, cube environment mapping, and per pixel shading.

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