HP Workstations for Game Development
March 23, 2013, Game Developers Conference, San Francisco—We talked with Terry Brown from HP and Jon Guess from ALT Systems about their new workstation-software bundles. These integrated systems are directed for game developers who need a pre-configured system with the latest software tools.
HP has been in the workstation business for a while and has achieved #1 market share. The main industries for their workstations have been in high-end graphics, animation, and medical imaging. The latest graphics in games has characteristics of all of these areas, so is a good fit for their products. The main difference in these machines is that they are filled with G-Force graphics GPU cards, and not the headless number-crunching Quadro cards.
The HP workstations are configured with PNY G-Force graphics cards in addition to the Xeon processors and registered ECC RAM. The systems are setup to mirror the latest consumer hardware from a graphics card standpoint. The standard configuration information is shared with all the partners to enable any partner to support the tools and the workstation.
The workstations come in two variations; the Z1 27-inch all-in-one and the Z820 and Z620 desktop machines. The desktop versions come with dual 1GbE NICs and up to 512 GB of RAM. The Z820 and 620 have Nvidia GTX 680 video cards, while the Z1 has the GTX 620M mobile version for lower power consumption. The machines run Windows 7 64-bit. Both configurations have tool-less modular assembly to enable quick change out of internal devices including storage and graphics cards.
ALT Systems is an Autodesk VAR and Windows and Linux integrator. They are working with HP, PNY Systems, Autodesk, and Epic Games to offer a preconfigured and fully integrated turn-key high-reliability platform for game development. The intent is to reduce the time and effort to set up a workstation, and have a stable reference platform for future upgrades.
The collaboration between the companies provides an integrated solution, post delivery support from any partner, and configuration management with capabilities for future upgrades. The fully featured machines come bundled with the Epic Unreal tools and can also add the Autodesk Entertainment Creation Suite. Information on pricing and availability can be accessed at http://altsystems.com/gamedevelopereditions/
