Nvidia has announced a new graphics platform called RealityServer. Intriguingly, it's based in the cloud rather than on a big, hot, bit of silicon in your desktop case. The idea is that web apps and video games will be able to tap into a good chunk more graphics power than they normally would.

The server uses an array of graphics chips and some software developed by a company called Mental Images that Nvidia acquired in 2007. It's claimed that it can serve up quality akin to movie SFX in the browser and on mobile phones.

"This is one giant leap closer to the goal of real-time photorealistic visual computing for the masses", said Nvidia's SVP, Dan Vivoli, "mental images fully embraced the concept of GPU co-processing to enable interactive photorealism anywhere, any time – something that was science fiction just yesterday".

The platform and a development kit will be available from 30 November, but there's little in the way of applications just yet. Still - Nvidia is saying that it'll be free to deploy non-commercial applications, so we could see a boom in users when that arrives. We'll keep you posted.

Via: nvidia.com

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