Day One: Wednesday, May 12, 2004

Each year enthusiasts, developers, and industry leaders converge at the Los Angeles Convention Center for E3: the Electronic Entertainment Expo. This year's E3 tips the scales on the entertainment meter. Once the doors of the 10th annual E3 opened, show goers flooded the floor, eager for a taste of the latest and greatest in the industry, and NVIDIA was there to deliver.

Visitors to the NVIDIA booth kept themselves busy with over 45 of the newest games from the top developers to choose from, all running on NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GPUs. Game highlights include Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005 from EA Games. And the NVIDIA booth is the only location at this year's E3 where show goers can see the demo in action. Vance Cook of Headgate Studios was on hand to show off the new features and effects—including self-shadowing, lifelike grass, and detailed trees with intricate shadow effects. When released Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005 will incorporate Microsoft DirectX 9 Shader Model 3.0 effects for even more detailed and lush environments, enabled only by the NVIDIA GeForce 6 Series of GPUs.

In addition, any visitor to the NVIDIA booth can visit the "Unreal Engine 3 Theater" for a viewing of the mind-blowing Unreal Engine 3 demo, powered by the GeForce 6800, and utilizing Shader Model 3.0 effects such as high dynamic-range lighting and FP16 blending. Epic designer Alan Willard said, "The GeForce 6800 gives us the features and speeds we need to get our job done." With stunning examples of virtual displacement mapping, floating point filtering and blending, and high dynamic-range lighting, the Unreal Engine 3 demo exemplifies the next generation of gaming.

A trip to the NVIDIA booth wouldn't be complete without a stop by the demo wall, featuring the latest NVIDIA GeForce 6800 demos: Nalu, Timbury, and Clear Sailing. Each demo is interactive, allowing visitors to control certain properties with sliders. Nalu is the popular choice—her beauty, grace, and her hair were a big hit. Visitors were awed by the long, flowing blond tresses of the NVIDIA mermaid—all rendered in real-time on GeForce 6800. And, they enjoyed a lot of her other features too: her iridescent scales; the play of light on her skin. With Nalu nearby, Timbury could easily get upstaged, but with his storybook look and engaging plot, he's garnered a lot of attention. The ship demo—Clear Sailing—captured its fair share of oohs and awes with its stunning water reflections, waves, and material effects.

Incredibly, the day kept going: the NVIDIA booth was packed well after 6 p.m., with attendees reticent to leave. With 5,000 square feet of booth space, there's a lot left to see in the NVIDIA booth alone. But, we're going to hit the floor for day two, so stay tuned for Day Two of NVIDIA at E3...