NVIDIA Announces GeForce GTX 1060: Starting at $249, Available July 19th
by Ryan Smith on July 7, 2016 9:00 AM ESTNVIIDA Ansel, Simultaneous Multi-Projection, & VR Funhouse Status Updates
Along with today’s news about the GeForce GTX 1060 launch, NVIDIA is also offering updated news on a few of their technologies and related software projects.
We’ll start with Ansel, NVIDIA’s 360 degree high-resolution screenshot composition and capture technology. After initially announcing it alongside the GTX 1080 as part of their Pascal technology briefing, the company is announcing that it will finally be shipping in select games this month, with the first of those shipping today. The first two games to get Ansel-enabled will be DICE’s Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst and CD Projekt Red’s The Witcher 3. Ansel support for Mirror’s Edge is launching today (or as NVIDIA’s press release puts it, “immediate availability”), meanwhile The Witcher 3 will get support added later this month.
As the tech requires vendors to integrate it into games and game engines on a case-by-case basis, this is a gradual rollout, but one NVIDIA is hoping to accelerate over time. The company has already lined up a half dozen additional games that will support the technology, including Unreal Tournament and No Man’s Sky, but they are not announcing an availability date at this time.
Meanwhile, in a more general status update on their Simultaneous Multi-Projection technology, NVIDIA is announcing that they have lined up both Unity and Epic Games to add support for the technology to their respective Unity and Unreal Engine 4 game engines. To that end the company is also confirming that over 30 games are now in development to implement the technology, including Epic’s Unreal Tournament.
Besides being a marquee feature of the Pascal architecture, simultaneous multi-projection is seen by NVIDIA as a key element in establishing a lead in the VR market. Though the full benefits of the technology remain to be seen, any potential performance advantage would be in their favor, and we should expect to see it significantly promoted alongside the GTX 1060, which will be NVIIDA’s entry-level VR card. Of course as developers need to implement the technology first, which is why for NVIDIA is it so important to get developers on-board and to make sure potential customers are aware.
Finally, speaking of VR, NVIDIA is also announcing that their big tech demo for Pascal, VR Funhouse, will be shipping this month. Unveiled alongside Ansel and SMP at the Pascal launch, VR Funhouse is built on Unreal Engine 4 and is meant to serve as a testbed for NVIDIA’s latest GameWorks/VRWorks technologies, including SMP and VRWorks Audio. The tech demo will be released on Steam later this month and will support the GTX 1060 and above. Though Pascal owners will want to take note that as this is a VR demo, it will require a VR headset – specifically, the HTC Vive – in order to use it.
Meanwhile NVIDIA has also confirmed that the source code to VR Funhouse will be opened up to developers. Though the primarily goal here is to allow developers to add additional attractions/modules to the tech demo, more broadly speaking it’s another means to help encourage developer adoption of GameWorks/VRWorks, giving developers a starting point for using the various technologies in NVIDIA’s libraries.
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topperdude - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
With the RX480 promoted as being capable of handling VR (how well, remains to be seen, but assume with driver updates that to be the case), AND because NVidia is claiming 980 level performance from the 1060, is it fair to assume the 1060 might also be able to handle VR - likely not as well as the 1080 or 1070?If not, could two GTX 1060s handle VR? I am guessing the answer might be closer to "remains to be seen" after the 19th once the benchmarks start rolling out (hopefully anandtech can include that in their list of testing ;-) ). I was an avid PC gamer in my teens and twenties but haven't done much for the past decade or so and am looking to get back into it but feel the 1070 and 1080 are more enthusiast-grade (performance and cost-wise) cards, especially if I don't continue long term. But would like to explore gaming, VR etc. So would like to start with a single 1060 and maybe move up to two 1060s if I get serious again so that's where I am coming from.
Thanks for any thoughts/inputs.
-Topper
warreo - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
One GTX 1060 will 100% be able to handle VR, no question about it. Min spec for Oculus and Vive is a GTX 970, and the 1060 will be closer to a 980 in performance, so roughly 15-20% faster than the minimum required for VR.Peter2k - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
No SLI on the 1060 as far as anyone can seeThat aside
They're bringing the 1080/1070 VR performance enhancements to the 1060 as well
Could be good to have
Depending on support
But as stated in the article
Seems like quite some engines gonna support that
What's it called again
Simutlainous multivitamin or something?
Peter2k - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
Ahh autocorrectMultiview
topperdude - Friday, July 8, 2016 - link
Too bad if the 1060 does not have SLI. Have there been other cards from NVidia where some cards (higher end) have SLI and others do not?-Topper
Casecutter - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
Here's my thinking... If you're pay north of $250 to do 1080p (other than a 1080p G-Sync 144Hz panel) is like throwing good money after bad. So it really about 1440p and that's where we need to look at each and say it's not just Fps. It's about Frame Pacing, FpS by Percentile, Frame Variance on 1440p. And to that... that's where we should look for these to show true differences not by the so many canned reviews we get now a days.Hxx - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
and here comes the RX 480 killer. I hope AMD reaped the benefits of being first to release cuz its not gonna last much longer.D. Lister - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
I was going to say, "can't wait for the review", but... *ahem*K_Space - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
Have anyone noticed how the 1060 PCI-E connector is waaay off the PCB? I've heard rumours that NV was aiming for bus powered only card and the 480 made them push the card further and then introduce the extra PCI-E connector (linked by a small cable which is solidered into the card for extra delivery). That would have been kick ass. I wonder if the partner cards will:a) not only be smaller but also b) be bus powered only.
brucek2 - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
The "launch date" and "launch prince" rows of the initial summary table are largely fictitious. While I understand a tiny number of customers were able to purchase on those dates and at those prices, the reality is the vast majority were not. Continuing to report them as straight forward facts without explanation or footnote is rewarding the manufacturer for these customer-unfriendly marketing practices and encouraging them to repeat them in future product cycles.I'd encourage the tech press to choose a more realistic measure of availability and price and to give it the largest weight in your reports. (This applies to all products/manufacturers, nvidia is by far not the only one playing this game.)