MUMBAI: U.S.-based chip maker AMD has unveiled new graphics cards under its ATI label that promise a quantum jump in the ability to process and render visual still and moving images by taking the underlying processing power to the teraflop region.

On Tuesday, the company announced the availability in India of two graphics cards in the ATI Radeon 4800 seriesthat claimed to achieve industry milestones that were thought to be a decade away.

Cuts time

In effect, the cards will enable content creators to marry the ultra realism of today’s digital cinema with the interactive sensory experience of cyber games, said AMD’s Chief Technology Officer (Graphical Processing) Raja Koduri. While dramatically cutting the time to perform compute-intensive tasks like rendering, from 30 hours for each frame to a few thousandth of a second, the cards would help film makers add hitherto unachievable levels of audience participation in new cinematic products.

Vishal Gondal, CEO of IndiaGames said “This is a great boon for Bollywood... I am excited as a game developer at the opportunities for synergy between cinema and gaming that this opens”.

Chris Hook, AMD Senior Manager, Communications, said the two graphic card offerings — Radeon HD 4850 and 4870 — would be available in India for about Rs. 12,000 and Rs. 16,000.