Why in God’s name they have to hold the thing in San Jose or Santa Clara every year I’ll never know. One year they did hold it in Long Beach and that was at least different. But in any event, it’s that time of year again. If you’ve never been to one, you really should, particularly if games are of professional interest to you. This year’s should be particularly interesting, NVIDIA is going to unveil the GeForceFX (wait – didn’t they do that at Comdex?) (Thursday night at the Fairmont – let’s see if they can party like ATI can!), Microsoft is having an High-Level Shader Language workshop – it’s first come first serve for these two-hour sessions, register here. If you want a more general introduction to shaders you might try Wolfgang Engel’s session on Friday at 10:30 am. Things I’ve heard but haven’t confirmed are the announcement of DirectX 9.1 from Microsoft and the announcement of the next generation of ATI cards based on the R350 chip. Of course you don’t want to miss Suite Night at the Fairmont, Friday, 7:30 pm. (Hint: about 9pm wander the stairwell peeking out on each floor, listening for those loud, private parties, or see if you can score a suite party list.)
While there’s no doubt that the GDC is a money-making interest (the top-shelf VIP pass is a staggering $1975) it’s the only games-dedicated conference around (There’s a GDC Europe as well later in the year).