British company ART VPS on Thursday introduced the latest iteration of its PURE ray-tracing card: a US$5,560 model that features 16 AR350 ray-tracing dual-core processors, 66MHz PCI-X compatibility and 64-bit core rendering software. The developer noted that itis twice as fast as its predecessor and can generate images up to 35 times faster than with software rendering. The card was designed with one purpose in mind: boost the raw performance of the ray-tracing process.
The PURE PCI-X comes with the RenderPipe plug-in, which works with current and past versions of 3DS Max, Maya and VIZ. The plug-in features a library of lighting, ray tracing, radiosity, motion blur and depth-of-field tools as well as HDRI support. Upgrades to the plug-in are free for the first year, and ART VPS noted that it will add support for global illumination in the next iteration, due for early fall. The company didnit have the new card on its Web site as The Mac Observer posted this article.