Could PowerVR be adding real-time hardware ray tracing to their 3dchips?

[Pottsey]

Imagination Technologies just bought Caustic technology who specialise in real-time interactive ray tracing and this technology can mix with traditional polygon based methods. Could we start seeing at some point real-time interactive ray tracing in mobile devices? It’s possible we might end up with mobiles looking better then desktop 3dcard if mobiles get ray tracing first .Imagine an Iphone 6 looking better then NVidia’s or AMD’s latest desktop 3dcard. Perhaps a dream but a possibility now.

“Caustic technology also allows coexistence of traditional polygon based rendered objects and inclusion of life-like ray-traced elements in the same scene.”

“Imagination gains access to unique and patented technology which enables real-time ray traced and cinema quality 3D graphics to be implemented in a novel and highly cost-effective manner. The capability can be efficiently added to Group’s highly successful POWERVR Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) “

source http://www.imgtec.com/corporate/newsdetail.asp?NewsID=603
source http://www.insidermedia.com/insider/south-east/44141-/

 

[Baboonanza]

Seems pretty unlikely to me. There is only one reason why ray-tracing would be more useful on a mobile than a PC and that's because the rendering time is directly proportional to screen resolution. But even now mobile screen are too large to make this a big enough benefit. If you can do it on a 960-by-640 screen (and with a tight power-budget!) then you can certainly do it for a 1680-by-960 screen with a PCI-E card.

And, funnily enough, there are stories about a PCI-E card released in April 2009. That was clearly a roaring success.

Smells like bull to me, or at very least it might be useful for some very specific things. But not games.

 

[Ordokai]

No. Unless, for instance, the number of rays being traced is absurdly small and used as a guideline for 'traditional' methods to fill in the blanks, which quite frankly defeats the purpose of having it in the first place. Point is, with all the cut corners the result will not even remotely be what we have come to understand under the term 'ray tracing'. I suspect they're using the buzzword to attract attention to their stuff. Remember how 2.5D games abused the 3D slogan ? Yeah, something like that.




- Ordokai

 

[Rroff]

I'm suprised there aren't raytracing addin boards for the PC by now - there was a proof of concept device back in 1999 or so that only ran at 75MHz (massively parallel) and could do 640x480@60fps, tho from memory I don't think it did caustics.

 

[Pottsey]

Baboonanza said "There is only one reason why ray-tracing would be more useful on a mobile than a PC"
I didn't mean more useful on the mobile, I mean we could end up with better graphics and better looking games on mobiles compared to the best desktop PC 3dcards. If PowerVR do raytraceing the graphics would blow away anything desktop 3dcards could do. The mobile chips have already just about caught up with the desktop chips see for the mobile chips http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDvPIhCd8N4

PowerVR have already been ahead of Nivida in areas and mobile phones have been advancing graphics wise much faster than the desktop. If it keeps going like this mobiles graphics features will take over desktop 3dcards within years.


Ordokai said "No. Unless, for instance, the number of rays being traced is absurdly small and used as a guideline for 'traditional' methods to fill in the blanks, which quite frankly defeats the purpose of having it in the first place. Point is, with all the cut corners the result will not even remotely be what we have come to understand under the term 'ray tracing'. I suspect they're using the buzzword to attract attention to their stuff. Remember how 2.5D games abused the 3D slogan ? Yeah, something like that."
Going by the videos its fully raytracing. See http://www.youtube.com/user/CausticGraphics#p/u/4/LSwjXDCknpo
it's not cutting corners and defeating the point. It seems far more than just buzz words.

 

[Baboonanza]

Baboonanza said "There is only one reason why ray-tracing would be more useful on a mobile than a PC"
I didn't mean more useful on the mobile, I mean we could end up with better graphics and better looking games on mobiles compared to the best desktop PC 3dcards. If PowerVR do raytraceing the graphics would blow away anything desktop 3dcards could do. The mobile chips have already just about caught up with the desktop chips see for the mobile chips http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDvPIhCd8N4

PowerVR have already been ahead of Nivida in areas and mobile phones have been advancing graphics wise much faster than the desktop. If it keeps going like this mobiles graphics features will take over desktop 3dcards within years.

What? Care to give any examples of area where they are ahead of Nvidia/AMD?

That video you posted is admittedly pretty good for a mobile game - it's almost PS2 graphics - but it's light-years behind a modern PC. Notice the lack of any detail in the background environments, the fact that there are only ever 2 characters on screen at a time, the really choppy frame-rate, the poor textures, the low resolution. If you think a mobile graphics chip is going to be able to perform anything like a 300W graphics card you're dreaming.

And real-time ray-tracing is just as practical on an iPhone as it is on a Desktop - not at all.

 

[Pottsey]

Baboonanza Said “What? Care to give any examples of area where they are ahead of Nvidia/AMD?”
The PowervVR chips had many features well before Nvidia/AMD and in some case’s still better. Free FSAA in that you have FSAA with no or almost no performance hit, Unified shaders long before Nvidia/AMD, Hidden Surface Removal well beyond what Nvidia/AMD have.



Baboonanza Said “If you think a mobile graphics chip is going to be able to perform anything like a 300W graphics card you're dreaming.”
It’s not a dream. A mobile chip with hardware ray tracing will outperform and look far better than what a none ray tracing 300W graphics card can pull off. If something like the Iphone 5 or 6 has a PowerVR ray tracing chip and desktop cards just keep going like they are than the Iphone graphics will be ahead of the PC.

A 300W desktop graphics card cannot compete against a decent ray ray-tracing chip. That is why ray-tracing is often called the Holy Grail; the first people to pull it off at useable speeds at decent costs will be able to pull off amazing cinema quality graphics.
Hardware ray-tracing could be one of the most exciting things to happen to graphics in many years.

I didn’t say outperformed in my first few posts, I said better features and looks better. We could end up with games looking so good on the phones that a desktop 3dcard cannot look as good. The phone might not be able to perform at the same high resolution as the desktop but at the low resolution say 1024x768 the 3d desktop card will look far, far worse than the phone.



Baboonanza Said “And real-time ray-tracing is just as practical on an iPhone as it is on a Desktop - not at all. “
Why not? It looks 100% practical. In fact it’s more practical for mobile over desktop. The ray-tracing video I linked to seemed practical and looked better than what current 3dcards can pull off.



Baboonanza Said “That video you posted is admittedly pretty good for a mobile game - it's almost PS2 graphics - but it's light-years behind a modern PC. Notice the lack of any detail in the background environments, the fact that there are only ever 2 characters on screen at a time, the really choppy frame-rate, the poor textures, the low resolution”
Almost PS2? Show me a PS2 game half that good, its well beyond PS2.
Did you load the default low res Youtube video? Try watching the HD video.

http://www.ultimaaiera.com/wp-content/gallery/news-images/infinityblade11.jpg
http://pocketfullofapps.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/infinity-blade_1.jpg
There is no way a PS2 could pull that off, it even has high FSAA. I don’t see any jagged edges.

http://www.tapscape.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Infinity_Blade_10.jpg
http://toucharcade.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/mzl.ulffeocx.jpg

How can you call that a lack of detail in the background?

That is not poor textures or low resolution and I didn’t see any choppy frame rates in game. As for the background it’s perfect for the size of the screen it’s meant to be played on.



Baboonanza Said “If you think a mobile graphics chip is going to be able to perform anything like a 300W graphics card you're dreaming.”
Perhaps you should read up no PowerVR chips more. A 300W PowerVR chip would be an estimated x3 to x5 faster than a 300w NVidia chip. Or another way to put it a 100mhz PowerVR chip tends to perform at the same speed as a 300Mhz to 500mhz Nivida chip.

Due to the way PowerVR chips work you get far more bang for the buck. PowerVR are pretty much kings of performance per watt and they seem to be advancieng faster than everyone else. They are already more than a generation ahead of Nvidia and ATI in the mobile markets.

 

[kylew]

Pottsey, Please learn the difference between "than" and "then". Each time you say "then" you actually mean "than".

 

[Pottsey]

Not much chance of that, been trying for years but my grammar and spelling is still very poor. I edited the ones I spotted. I still cannot get their, there, & they're correct either.

 

[Ordokai]

Baboonanza said See http://www.youtube.com/user/CausticGraphics#p/u/4/LSwjXDCknpo
it's not cutting corners and defeating the point. It seems far more than just buzz words.

Ok, but aren't we talking about mobile devices here ? That video shows a pretty low quality and simple real-time raytraced scene running at a measly 3-5 fps on a full-blown PC -with- a full size PCI-E card dedicated to this single purpose in addition to its conventional CPU/GPU. And this relates to making mobile devices able to do realtime raytracing at decent framerates how ?

Will we get there in the future ? Sure, but this is no miracle breakthrough. Frankly, I don't see them downsizing the design well enough to affect mobile devices anytime soon. Of course, given a small enough resolution even the shown big preliminary thing will probably achieve decent FPS but that is besides the point, no surprise that a PC can do it. I agree though, Hardware raytracing expansion cards are very exciting but we're not quite there yet. The scenario you propose of mobile devices overtaking PCs just does not seem possible. Simply put, there are factors at play here besides the screen resolution.

However, I must agree it's surprising we haven't had much support/development of consumer-level 'add-in' cards of this kind. One would think companies be dying to bring us new components for stuffin' in there, instead we seem to be going the much slower paced 'all-in-one' route of the holy duopoly with its inherent disadvantages. Electric cars and oil giants all over again perhaps ?





- Ordokai

 

[Pottsey]

Ordokai “And this relates to making mobiles devices able to run real time raytracing at decent framerates how ?”
PowerVR just bought the company responsible for the first decent real-time raytraced graphics and sound like they plan to implant it in their highly efficient 3dchips. The same 3Dchips that almost all major phones with decent 3d graphics use and will be using for years to come. If they pull this off surly you can agree it’s going to be a major advance in graphics, with the potential to look far better than what AMD or Nvidia can do.

I thought it was more like 15fps but anyway that was with a 2 year or older card that was at 75mhz (from memory) or some very slow speed made more as a proof of concept then a mass production card. If they can pull that off with a very cheap and very slow card imagine what they could pull off with a powerful card as efficient as PowerVR’s chip.

Am I really the only one that see’s the potential for real-time raytraced graphics?

 

[Biffa]

Theres no point arguing guys, he's the last remaining PowerVR fan.

 

[Pottsey]

Ordokai “The scenario you propose of mobile devices overtaking PCs just does not seem possible. Simply put, there are factors at play here besides the screen resolution.“
To clarify, I am not saying Mobiles will 100% take over desktop graphics. I am just saying that potentially if mobiles do get real times ray tracing graphics before desktop cards it’s a very real possibility mobiles will end up looking much better and overtake.

Why does that not seem possible? It’s certainly not guaranteed but it now seems possible. Or am I missing something, why isn’t it possible? Why can real time ray tracing on mobiles not look better than none ray tracing desktop cards?

 

[jigger]

Baboonanza Said “What? Care to give any examples of area where they are ahead of Nvidia/AMD?”
The PowervVR chips had many features well before Nvidia/AMD and in some case’s still better. Free FSAA in that you have FSAA with no or almost no performance hit, Unified shaders long before Nvidia/AMD, Hidden Surface Removal well beyond what Nvidia/AMD have.



Baboonanza Said “If you think a mobile graphics chip is going to be able to perform anything like a 300W graphics card you're dreaming.”
It’s not a dream. A mobile chip with hardware ray tracing will outperform and look far better than what a none ray tracing 300W graphics card can pull off. If something like the Iphone 5 or 6 has a PowerVR ray tracing chip and desktop cards just keep going like they are than the Iphone graphics will be ahead of the PC.

A 300W desktop graphics card cannot compete against a decent ray ray-tracing chip. That is why ray-tracing is often called the Holy Grail; the first people to pull it off at useable speeds at decent costs will be able to pull off amazing cinema quality graphics.
Hardware ray-tracing could be one of the most exciting things to happen to graphics in many years.

I didn’t say outperformed in my first few posts, I said better features and looks better. We could end up with games looking so good on the phones that a desktop 3dcard cannot look as good. The phone might not be able to perform at the same high resolution as the desktop but at the low resolution say 1024x768 the 3d desktop card will look far, far worse than the phone.



Baboonanza Said “And real-time ray-tracing is just as practical on an iPhone as it is on a Desktop - not at all. “
Why not? It looks 100% practical. In fact it’s more practical for mobile over desktop. The ray-tracing video I linked to seemed practical and looked better than what current 3dcards can pull off.



Baboonanza Said “That video you posted is admittedly pretty good for a mobile game - it's almost PS2 graphics - but it's light-years behind a modern PC. Notice the lack of any detail in the background environments, the fact that there are only ever 2 characters on screen at a time, the really choppy frame-rate, the poor textures, the low resolution”
Almost PS2? Show me a PS2 game half that good, its well beyond PS2.
Did you load the default low res Youtube video? Try watching the HD video.

http://www.ultimaaiera.com/wp-content/gallery/news-images/infinityblade11.jpg
http://pocketfullofapps.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/infinity-blade_1.jpg
There is no way a PS2 could pull that off, it even has high FSAA. I don’t see any jagged edges.

http://www.tapscape.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Infinity_Blade_10.jpg
http://toucharcade.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/mzl.ulffeocx.jpg

How can you call that a lack of detail in the background?

That is not poor textures or low resolution and I didn’t see any choppy frame rates in game. As for the background it’s perfect for the size of the screen it’s meant to be played on.



Baboonanza Said “If you think a mobile graphics chip is going to be able to perform anything like a 300W graphics card you're dreaming.”
Perhaps you should read up no PowerVR chips more. A 300W PowerVR chip would be an estimated x3 to x5 faster than a 300w NVidia chip. Or another way to put it a 100mhz PowerVR chip tends to perform at the same speed as a 300Mhz to 500mhz Nivida chip.

Due to the way PowerVR chips work you get far more bang for the buck. PowerVR are pretty much kings of performance per watt and they seem to be advancieng faster than everyone else. They are already more than a generation ahead of Nvidia and ATI in the mobile markets.

Look a Quote Button, handy...

 

[Ordokai]

[snip] Why can real time ray tracing on mobiles not look better than none ray tracing desktop cards?

Yes, raytracing on mobiles can look better than non-raytracing on a desktop. But let me put it this way :

'why can a motorcycle-engine powered RC toy car not go faster than a non-motorcycle-engine powered bicycle ?'



- Ordokai

 

[Monkeynut]

Pottsey can you PLEASE quote people in the proper manner.

 

[Klo]

I think Pottsey is the guy who said Ageia's Physx was the future, and by now every game would come out with amazing PPU accelerated physics simulations

Raytracing doesn't suddenly make everything better, it makes the lighting more realistic, but if the textures etc are still low quality, it won't make that much difference.

And I remember people trying to persuade him to quote normally in those discussions, he won't

 

[Ordokai]

[snip] Raytracing doesn't suddenly make everything better, it makes the lighting more realistic, but if the textures etc are still low quality, it won't make that much difference.

Ahh splendid, I see you have touched upon yet another angle of why the scenario is flawed. Indeed, even if achieved in more-or-less full measure on mobiles, raytracing by itself does not make a good looking image. In fact, you would have to ramp up a whole deal of components to achieve complex and awesome-looking scenes. In the end the issue becomes 'how can we fit a PC within a mobile' and thats exactly what the industry is going for, slowly but surely. Competitive graphics are not going to happen overnight with one component.

Even if we make a whole deal of unlikely assumptions to get this thing in a mobile by tomorrow, can the rest of the device handle complex enough environments/models for raytracing to even matter, for instance ? In fact, with anything less than complex scenes/models tracing rays would be close to pointless, why use a ridiculously calculation intensive simulation when an approximation would yield much the same result ? Even more so I suspect on a tiny screen.

I think Pottsey is the guy who said Ageia's Physx was the future, and by now every game would come out with amazing PPU accelerated physics simulations

Haha well then, considering his tendency towards these things, he should be all over the following piece of 'utopian computing'

Pottsey ! Mate have fun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXJUGLiZkV0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THaam5mwIR8&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3Sw3dnu8q8&feature=related









- Ordokai

 

[Pottsey]

Monkeynut said "Pottsey can you PLEASE quote people in the proper manner. "
But that is what I am doing according to the correct rules of the English language. You see " those are called quotation marks, used for quoting people



Ordokai "In fact, you would have to ramp up a whole deal of components to achieve complex and awesome-looking scenes."
Why would you? PowerVR has near perfect hidden surface removal unlike everyone else. PowerVR only renders what can be seen cutting down the power needed to render a screen massively. What components would need to be ramped up? I don't see any apart from the GPU which would be ramped up anyway as we are talking next generation or the generation after. The point of hardware ray tracings is the whole thing is done on the GPU. Apart from database issues there is no extra strain on the rest of the system if the GPU can handle the workload.


The devices are already using SSD's so that's the data transfer and database access problems fixed. As far as I can see the only thing holding us back is the GPU.



Klo said " Raytracing doesn't suddenly make everything better, it makes the lighting more realistic, but if the textures etc are still low quality, it won't make that much difference."
Yes but PowerVR solved the bandwidth problem and have more than enough spare bandwidth and storage space for good textures. That's hardly a problem.

I didn't say Ageia's Physx was the future, I said that if we call have hardware phsyics then games could be so much better then today. It's the lack of hardware phsyics that's holding us back. After seeing some of the hardware physics coming in Eve online and other games I believe I was correct in saying hardware physics is the future.

 

[twist3d0n3]

so it isn't just me finding the quoting quite hideous