LLVMpipe vs. OpenSWR Software Rendering On A 40 Core / 80 Thread Tyan Server

[Adarion]

Well, if you consider 10fps playable. And that is on a AMD 5x86 133MHz, the top of the line 486. On a more common DX2 66MHz or DX4 100MHz the framerate is even lower. Quake was really meant as a Pentium game, and even on a Pentium 133MHz it only averages about 27fps (which was considered playable back then). I'm not making up these numbers BTW. I tested Quake on these systems a few months ago.

I was running original Quake on my 486 DX2/66, 8 MiB RAM, 1 MB VRAM PCI dGPU. It was playable. Really low resolution and everything but it was running and I also had CD audio. The first mission pack required ~40 MiB RAM, so that would not run and I think that was also CPU wise no longer really playable.

[schmidtbag]

This was a lot more disappointing than I expected.  Perhaps the low clock speeds became too much of a burden? Michael: You should also try testing a GPU like a GT 630, 620, 440, 430, or 240, if you have any of those on hand.  Those have 96 CUDA cores and ought to be very close GPU analogues.  They may have more cores but they also have lower clock speeds and are designed for graphics tasks.  I get the impression AMD/ATI GPUs have shorter pipelines, which is why I don't think any of those would be as good of a test.

[smitty3268]

What kind of cpu usage were you seeing? Did it use any more than 8 cpu cores, for example?

[Kamikaze]

I remember changing the settings to full software rendering in UT '99 because of an OpenGL issue.

I think UT'04 even had a software renderer! Perhaps that was the last AAA shooter to have one?

[coder]

What's the raytracing performance like on this sort of hardware? I mean it's an old technique, surely the performance gains since the early 1990s have been vast.

Intel was talking up realtime raytracing, in the days prior to Larrabee's cancellation. They even demo'd a ray-tracing mod of some quake version (3?) running on Skulltrail (dual-processor Core 2 Quad).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blfxI1cVOzU

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Skulltrail

Most recently, Imagination was pushing realtime raytracing. Too bad they've fallen on hard times.

https://www.imgtec.com/powervr/ray-tracing/

https://www.imgtec.com/blog/unreal-engine-and-the-ray-tracing-revelation/?utm_source=blog&utm_campaign=related_blog_links&utm_medium=Alex%20Voica&utm_content=introducing-the-brand-new-opengl-es-3-0

I was hoping realtime raytracing would be the next big feature of Apple iProducts (I don't own one, but them doing it might bring along the rest of the industry). But they're no longer going to use Imagination GPUs, so... probably not.

[coder]

Quake was really meant as a Pentium game, and even on a Pentium 133MHz it only averages about 27fps (which was considered playable back then). I'm not making up these numbers BTW. I tested Quake on these systems a few months ago.

At what resolution? I had a Pentium 75 and I'm sure my average framerate was somewhere in the 20's. I'd have been using something around 320x200 (or 320x240, since it was co-developed by Michael Abrash, who discovered/popularized that mode).

Anyway, all this talk of Quake is irrelevant, given how much more sophisticated graphics APIs and game engines have become. But it was impressive what they managed to achieve, back in the day.

[arjan_intel]

What's the raytracing performance like on this sort of hardware? I mean it's an old technique, surely the performance gains since the early 1990s have been vast.

the number of pixels (kind of square with resolution) has grown a lot too in that time....

[devius]

True, though Quake was (relatively) playable even on 486 dx2-66,

Right... if you consider 6fps playable.

...to run it smoothly at least at 320x200 Pentium 60 were needed.

Better, but you're still looking at about 14fps only.

[DMJC]

What's the raytracing performance like on this sort of hardware? I mean it's an old technique, surely the performance gains since the early 1990s have been vast.

[eydee]

This server should be used for hosting Phoronix, so it doesn't crash every time AMD releases something.