NVISION’s slogan was “The World of Visual Computing”  but could be just as easily titled “All the cool stuff of NVIDIA partners”, because ATI and Matrox was nowhere to be seen.  But don’t get me wrong,it is a top notch event, and I plan on paying my way to attend next year so I can experience everything.

HIPerWall is the first thing you see entering the convention center.

The event truly covered all corners of visual computing, from hardware vendors, cutting edge technologies, famous speakers, to the largest LAN party I have set eyes on.  Any geek will find lots to love here.

GeForce LAN. “The Guinness World Record for the longest continuous LAN party with over 100 participants was set today at NVISION 08. 203 hardcore gamers kept going for 36 straight hours!” – NVISION Highlights

k|ngp|n attempting to break world records right on the showroom floor at the EVGA booth.

Wallace Santos, President & CEO of MAINGEAR, checking out the friendly competition over at the SIM Factory booth.

I met with some of the best case modders in the world including fellow [H]ardForum member craigbru who completed Project: Rogue (on right) which was featured on the HardOCP.com homepage.

Later this week when I return from my trip you can expect full writups from the booths that were MultiMonitor related.

NVIDIA enabled PhysX with their GeForce v177.83 graphics driver, Geforce 8 and higher only, sorry.  This driver package will also install v8.08.01 PhysX System Software.  The PhysX control panel can be accessed through the Windows Start Menu under ‘NVIDIA Corporation’.  In proper celibration they released a ton of free apps, demos, and a full game through The Force Within Site.

The “free” PhysX support plus apps are a pleasant surprise in a world where companies give me the impression that they dont care who they screw to make a buck.

Available for free from this first GeForce Power Pack includes:

• Warmonger — Full free game! Destroy walls, floors, and whole buildings to open up new paths or close existing ones. Destructive power is more than eye candy here-it’s a tactical weapon in this ground-breaking action game.

• Unreal Tournament 3 PhysX Mod Pack-includes three maps with amazing effects that fundamentally change the gameplay (requires full version of Unreal Tournament 3)

• A sneak peek at the upcoming Nurien social networking service, based on the Unreal Engine 3 (with built-in benchmark).

• A sneak peek at the upcoming game Metal Knight Zero (with built-in benchmark).

• All new NVIDIA “The Great Kulu” tech demo that showcases the use of PhysX soft bodies in a real game play environment.

• All new NVIDIA “Fluid” tech demo-a simulation of realistic fluid effects with a variety of liquids.

• Badaboom Media Converter: Beta  -  formats video and audio files for a variety of devices using a process called transcoding. By utilizing a NVIDIA® GeForce® GPU, badaboomâ„¢ enables users to painlessly convert video in multiple formats and view them on their portable media devices – all in a convenient, intuitive application.

• New WHQL-certified drivers that enable PhysX acceleration for all GeForce 8, 9, and GTX 200 Series GPUs. This new driver also adds support for PhysX-accelerated features in the commercially available Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 game.

Upcoming PC titles that incorporate PhysX technology include Cryostasis, Backbreaker, Aliens: Colonial Marines, with close to 20 more PC titles expected before the year-end holiday seasons.

The Official Press Release.

The newest version of Surround Gaming Utility (SGU) by Matrox for the TripleHead2Go just got a little better by adding 2 new resalutions, triple 1440×900 and triple 1680×1050. Not very common sizes, Im sure someone out there is happy they did.

So hurry on over and grab the download, and try not to be offended by the giant nipple background while you are doing so.

Close to home, Logan Airport, is doing something close to my heart by mimicking a control tower for training new controllers and workers.  In addition to what looks like 7+ rear projected monitors making up the video wall, the interactive simulation has voice recognition so spoken radio commands are translated to moving virtual airplanes for a native feel.

The system, designed by Adacel Systems Inc., will be deployed to 19 locations across North America as part of a $48 million dollar contract.  Logan will begin their instillation this fall.

I can see all the Microsoft Flight Simulator fans wanting a piece of this action, so I don’t know any other way to let  you down easier than saying it would probably cost you $2.5mil ($48mil / 19 locations) unless you do it yourself.

via. Boston.Com

I have been a fan of gaming cockpits almost as long as I have loved Multiple Monitors.  The VRX Mach4 is my idea of a well designed cockpit and best of all they are available for purchase right now.

Featuring 3x 1080p 37″ LCD’s and a 7″ rear view LCD you got all your blind spots covered. Right down to the “Virtual Wind System powered by 2 dual Honeywell fans”

Too bad you have to have one Xbox pet TV and very few games support it.

According to a report over at Engadget, ATI is getting ready to roll out new CrossFire X drivers that will enable you to CrossFire diffrent ATI GPU’s.  Examples of RV670- and R680 were given.  This is good news for those who piece together their Multi-GPU systems as the technology gets old and show up for sale used.

Wake me when you can enable multiple GPU’s and Multiple Monitors.

Samsung has just announced the SyncMaster 2263DX a 22-inch LCD monitor that features an additional 7-inch monitor
connected to the display. The 7-incher’ is a USB display, and is designed to meet the needs of people who want an additional display without the costs or deskspace of a full sized additional monitor.

Personally, they are moving in the right direction, but a screen that small should be positioned above, not to the side. That way I can add 2 more SyncMaster 2263DX’s on both sides! You see where I’m going here?

Edit: It looks like Samsung was not cutting corners with this monitor, the arm that extends the secondary display can be repositioned to above.  Thanks Betty.

NOT JUST TWO LCD SCREENS MOUNTED ON THE SAME STANDBrea, California and Munich, Germany – January 7, 2008 — EVGA Corporation, a trendsetting graphics card and motherboards manufacturer announced today the release of Interviewâ„¢ Dual-Monitor System, a brand new concept in dual-monitor display with two rotating wide-screen LCD screens.

EVGA Interviewâ„¢ Dual-Monitor System offers two 17″ wide-screen WXGA LCD screens and can receive input signals from dual DVI Digital or dual VGA Analog sources. Two LCD screen panels can also open and close horizontally.

EVGA Interviewâ„¢ also features an integrated 1.3-megapixel webcam, a microphone, a headset output, USB 2.0 ports and two stereo speakers.

EVGA Interviewâ„¢ comes with a 3-year limited warranty and is available through leading resellers.

More information can be found at http://www.anandtech.com/Gallery.aspx?id=19

Each panel can be flipped around 180 degrees and will automatically flip the image, so you can be working on a document and showing someone else either the same screen or a different desktop. EVGA expects the InterView to debut in March at a price point of around $750.

EVGA also demonstrated some USB video adapters. EVGA UV Plus+

Toms hardware has a couple sexy photos but nothing new along the lines of performance.

Nvidia took the opportunity to show of its new three-way SLI technology at CES 2008 this week. While packing three GPUs into a single desktop PC may seem excessive, think again. Nvidia was running Crysis on a custom Q6600 quad core system with three 8800 GTXs running at a full resolution of 1920 x 1080. And if that wasn’t enough, the game’s settings were all cranked to very high.

To sum it up it looks to be a multiple DLP display enclosed in a case. But it gets the job done, and so far looks to be the closest anyone has come to a consumer Multi-Projector display.

To see more shots, head on over to Engadget.