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Intel launches visual content, game site

Chipmaker launches a game and visual developer site to enable developers to create graphics and video applications.

Brooke Crothers Former CNET contributor
Brooke Crothers writes about mobile computer systems, including laptops, tablets, smartphones: how they define the computing experience and the hardware that makes them tick. He has served as an editor at large at CNET News and a contributing reporter to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. His interest in things small began when living in Tokyo in a very small apartment for a very long time.
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Brooke Crothers
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Intel has launched a Web site to help game and visual content developers create software for its graphics silicon and processors. Intel's next-generation Larrabee graphics chip is also slated to become part of the focus.

"Supporting the new Intel 4 Series chipset family introduced at Computex, Intel has launched the Intel Visual Computing Developer Community, a technical resource to enable developers...to create innovative graphics and video applications," Intel said in a statement.

The Intel 4 Series includes the G45 Express chipset and GMA X4500HD graphics media accelerator, which has built-in support for Blu-ray 1080p high-definition video playback. The chipset also supports Microsoft DirectX 10 and game-centric graphics technologies such as Shader Model 4.0.

Intel says these improvements deliver "everyday gameplay for the most popular game titles."

Intel Visual Developer Community Web site
Intel Visual Developer Community Web site Intel

Intel is clearly ratcheting up its presence in the gaming and visual computing segments. In a video posted on the site, Roger Chandler, director of marketing for the Visual Computing Software Division, said that though Intel works with developers in the digital content creation space, "We're really focused on the game industry...The big focus we have right now is the game space."

Chandler's team is focused on processors, integrated graphics products, and mobile platforms.

"We're entering this era where folks have been so focused on making games look real, (but) they're now realizing that we need to make them act real," he said. Chandler cited artificial intelligence and game physics as two pillars of this "act real" strategy.

The video also indicated that the upcoming Larrabee graphics platform looms large. "This effort is supporting a platform we don't talk about all that much--Larrabee," said Paul Steinberg of Intel, who participated in the video. Intel has described Larrabee as a "many core" Intel Architecture graphics chip that is expected to debut in the second half of 2009.

The site also contains white papers on high definition audio and video, discussion forums, blogs, and wikis, Intel said.