PowerVR demonstrates Ray Tracing GPU x5 faster with x10 less power over a NVidia 980 TI

[Pottsey]

The article in the link below has much better quality videos then the old ones I posted a while back, but not a lot of new info. The demo of the PowerVR PCI Express GPU is very impressive against NVidia GPU. Not so much from a gaming point of view but for those interested in ray tracing graphics this is a massive improvement.

http://blog.imgtec.com/powervr-developers/real-time-ray-tracing-on-powervr-gr6500-ces-2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psDRzQw3v0o#t=62

 

[Pottsey]

So is this just a mobile/smartphone platform or will it ever become viable as a desktop GPU?

All I could get out of them is a plan for mass volume for 2017 and a few smaller products sooner. So it depends on who has licensed it. The older 2 Ray Tracing generations ended up as viable desktop GPU’s and I hope this one is as well which is what I assume they mean by smaller products sooner.

But that is just my assumption, although I can make educated guess at who has licensed the technology IMG so far they are not telling us. The only other snippet I got from them was the first versions wouldn’t be smartphone but that could mean anything from Smart TV to consoles first or hopefully PC.

For PC gaming I cannot see it taking off as the penetration wouldn’t be high enough unless someone like AMD or NV licensed it and I have seen no hints at either being one of the interested party's. But for those of us that do Ray Tracing for fun or at pro level it could be useful like the older two cards. I do no more then 1 company is testing out the Ray Tracing Tech with a view to use it but again IMG are not saying who. Apple are a safe bet, my next guess would be Nintendo, MediaTek & Amazon.

 

[Pottsey]

Can a game be made to render using ray tracing? And if so would these chips be fast at it?

The Unity game devlopment engine which is used to make a lot of games supports this hardware. Apprently using this ray traching for lights and shadows in a hybrid engine gives a 50% speed increse, 50% bandwith and memory saving and better graphics.

 

[Pottsey]

It still isn't viable for gaming.

That title is about as click bait as it gets

Well I admit to making the title click bait but it is viable for gaming as a hybrid engine. Lights and shadow via RT. That's a 10watt 28nm card at 14nm its 3watt and very viable.

 

[Pottsey]

I'm sure there was a thread about this ages ago...

I did make a post about this before it was publicly reveled. This is the first time its been shown off to the public. Which is why news sites are picking it up now and didn't last time I talked about it.

I wonder when ray traced graphics will be the norm in games. I remember Stardust on the amiga and the ray traced intro looked amazing....at the time, ah memories

Completely forgot about that game. It was the Atari STE that got me into Ray Tracing and the STE that I played Stardust on.

I wonder as the node shrinks become more and more extended,whether AMD or Nvidia would license the tech in some way,so you could have a small dedicated ray-tracing chip which would handle various tasks,leaving the main GPU to do other things.

The tech does work in a hybrid approach like that and in theory both AMD and NV can approach IMG and take out a license to use the tech. The chances of that happening is not something I would want to even guess at.

 

[Pottsey]

http://hexus.net/tv/show/2016/01/Imagination_demos_real_time_ray_tracing_on_a_PowerVR_GPU

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/imagination-real-time-ray-tracing,news-52128.html

Nintendo I had heard about but I was not aware the other two major console makers have have shown interest.

 

[Pottsey]

So it is x5 faster whilst using x10 less power over a NVidia 980 TI just at ray tracing then?

The comment about x5 faster and x10 less power was for a full ray traced screen. The onboard PowerVR GPU is a mobile class GPU so while it can be faster then some NV chips its no where near 980 TI speeds.

Ray Tracing also offers some advantages in a hybrid approach where you do lights and shadows via Ray Tracing and everything else by the GPU.

 

[Pottsey]

So yeah, Imagination Technologies was killed by Apple and sold off to the Chinese.

Any hope of PowerVR ever coming back to the desktop GPU space is completely dead.

https://www.ft.com/content/8c12d246-beff-11e7-b8a3-38a6e068f464

Old news is old, but I've only just seen this

Not completely dead there is still an extremely tiny chance. Although the Chinese now own them they are keeping at least for now everything in the UK. PowerVR is still being worked on by mostly UK Engineers. A bit like Arm was sold to the Japanese but still based in the UK.