Nvidia Launches Geforce 6800

Nvidia has launched its latest consumer graphics card architecture--the Geforce 6 series, consisting of the Geforce 6800 and Geforce 6800 Ultra, which the company claims operate an average of 2 times faster than any of its earlier cards, in addition to implementing the DirectX Shader Model 3.0. At a press conference announcing the cards, Nvidia showed demonstrations of several games that were using the enhanced features the cards offer to show off the improved visual quality that is possible, including peeks at an upcoming mod of Far Cry, the next Everquest, and of the Unreal Engine 3, all of which used the new lighting and texturing features of the card to dramatically increase the realism of the game scenes demonstrated--with textures that had full relief and realistic lighting.