ATI plans to unleash Stream processing next month

While ATI's Radeon GPUs have technically supported their Stream processing initiative for some time now, up to this point the company hasn't provided tools to the general public that unleash the full potential of the technology, Folding@Home is the only real GPGPU app on the desktop for the consumer. That's about to change though.

Beginning with next month's Catalyst 8.12 driver release, ATI plans to incorporate a Stream-compatible graphics driver to the general public. Launching alongside the new driver is a new Avivo video converter utility. The utility harnesses the 800 stream processors inside the RV770 GPU to transcode video, offloading that task from the CPU. According to ATI, the Radeon 4850 can encode a 1920x1080 HD MPEG2 video up to 17 times faster than Intel's QX9650 Core 2 CPU, while a 4870 X2 is two times faster than NVIDIA's GTX 280 while using Badaboom, which sells for $30.

ATI is providing their Avivo video converter utility for free, with support for all Radeon 4600 and 4800 cards.

ATI is also partnering with ISVs to bring Stream computing to apps beyond the Avivo video converter utility. Next month ArcSoft plans to release an update to its TotalMedia Theatre application that will includes ArcSoft SimHD, a new type of post processing technology that allows consumers to experience close-to-HD viewing of standard definition content thanks to ATI Stream. In Q1'09 CyberLink plans to introduce PowerDirector 7 with support for Stream computing. According to AMD PowerDirector 7 will boast video conversion capabilities that go beyond the free Avivo video converter.

Catalyst 8.12 and the video converter are slated to be introduced on or around December 10th.