All you guys that haven't hopped on the new 3d card bandwagon might be wondering about the Permedia 3. Well PCParadox came through with a review of the Permedia 3 Create! (not too shabby, but I think what we're really waiting for is the next generation of tech) Well, I guess virtual texturing is new...

Virtual Texturing, I think, is the most important feature on the Permedia3. Virtual Texturing most importantly, works independent and invisible to the game, thus providing seamless integration into ALL games. Virtual Texturing alleviates a lot of strain from the on-chip memory, and cuts down on the use of the AGP bus. To put this in perspective, just think about what  effects of Virtual Texturing when you start to run Unreal Tournament and Quake III with scenes with large textures. Most other cards (other than maybe the Savage4) will have to slow down as larger textures are pushed through the bus, while the Permedia3 chops up textures into manageable chunks and keeps sending things through at the same speed.