Intel Lands More Open-Source Vulkan Driver Changes For Ray-Tracing

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Intel Lands More Open-Source Vulkan Driver Changes For Ray-Tracing

Even though Vulkan ray-tracing support on Intel graphics hardware isn't coming until Xe HPG avaiability, Intel's Linux graphics driver developers have been preparing since last year. In preparation for the Xe HPG launch, Intel's open-source talent have for many months already been preparing the Vulkan ray-tracing functionality wither another batch of code being merged today...

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Intel-Vulkan-RT-Pipelines

[Developer12]

Seemingly absent from this article is whether the changes apply to existing intel GPUs.

Are the existing integrated graphics less performant? Yes, but that is irrelevant to the question of API compatibility. If the hardware can render it, let it render it.

[Michael]

Seemingly absent from this article is whether the changes apply to existing intel GPUs.

Are the existing integrated graphics less performant? Yes, but that is irrelevant to the question of API compatibility. If the hardware can render it, let it render it.

It's mentioned in the article that there is only the Vulkan RT support with Xe HPG. (Whether any hacks/workarounds like being tried with RADV RT for older GPUs remains to be seen but Intel likely won't be working on that at all)

[smitty3268]

Seemingly absent from this article is whether the changes apply to existing intel GPUs.

Are the existing integrated graphics less performant? Yes, but that is irrelevant to the question of API compatibility. If the hardware can render it, let it render it.

The current Intel hardware can't render it. I thought that was common knowledge.

[stormcrow]

The current Intel hardware can't render it. I thought that was common knowledge.

Well, it can... but you may be waiting a long time for each frame! CPU rendering! Ouch!

[andre30correia]

Seemingly absent from this article is whether the changes apply to existing intel GPUs.

Are the existing integrated graphics less performant? Yes, but that is irrelevant to the question of API compatibility. If the hardware can render it, let it render it.

the igpu rendering ray tracing? I doubt

[zxy_thf]

the igpu rendering ray tracing? I doubt

Possible if Intel re-used the discrete Xe IP core in their iGPU.
(However I highly doubt it since iirc discrete Xe manufacturing has been outsourced to TSMC)

[smitty3268]

Possible if Intel re-used the discrete Xe IP core in their iGPU.
(However I highly doubt it since iirc discrete Xe manufacturing has been outsourced to TSMC)

The op was specifically discussing already released hardware. The Xe gpus which implement hardware ray tracing haven't been released yet, on either desktop, laptop, or the igpu side.

[Developer12]

the igpu rendering ray tracing? I doubt

I'm talking in ANY driver-supported igpu. If the hardware can physically do the math, I don't see a problem with implementing it. Let the user decide if the framerate is high enough.

[Developer12]

The op was specifically discussing already released hardware. The Xe gpus which implement hardware ray tracing haven't been released yet, on either desktop, laptop, or the igpu side.

Perhaps, but in other drivers we've seen it implemented as a compute shader or similar. Yes, you can have hardware that is specifically tuned for a particular computation, but in the end it's just math. In some cases it's worked just fine stringing other operations together that the hardware already supported.