Originally posted by ehansin
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Google Deprecating RenderScript In Favor Of Vulkan Compute
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Originally posted by ehansin View Post
Curious thought, and I really don't have the answer, but in yesterday's posting here on the M1 GPU ("More Progress Is Made Understanding Apple's M1 GPU, Working Towards An Open Driver") their was speculation that the M1 GPU was simpler in design that fit catering to the Metal API, which the commenter claimed to be even more low-level that DX12 or Vulcan. Further speculating that more complex hardware elements may be required to fit into a DX12 and/or Vulcan world, in fact that complexity in hardware may have been necessitated to cater to these.
Again, I don't know the answer to this, but wonder in the future if that "simpler" ends up being better. Obviously an open standard (i.e. Vulcan) is what you really want, and everything I read here makes it sound like a great thing. I am not an expert in these things, only something that came to mind. Regardless, I'll take the "Festivus for the Rest Of Us", thank you very much!
Long story short, I discovered a graphics demo app by SGI that showed off some of the real time warping and layering effects on images that the Octane could do. HOLY MOTHER OF PEARL JAM !! That beast of a workstation could do things with a 300 Mhz MIPS CPU and VPU board ( what they called a GPU ) with 256 MB of RAM made in 1997 that my 1 Ghz AMD Dual Athlon with 1GB of RAM and an actual ATI GPU card couldn't do in 2005...(it was Windows based, it would be another year before I went Linux)
The MIPS CPU was a very "simple" RISC CPU design particularly compared to any x86 or even PowerPC of that day much less afterwards. But the entire SGI board and interconnect design was VERY WIDE. Data just didn't get backed up like it did in a typical x86 bus design. In fact AMDs eventual HyperTransport bus design was inspired in part by the crossbar design of the MIPS bus. Plus SGI was the inventor of OpenGL the graphics API we have come to know so well. Back then and especially compared to the early version of DirectX, OpenGL WAS the close to metal graphics solution. PARTICULARLY for MIPS. So the chip designs didn't really need to be as complex. You just load up the RAM, widen the data channels, utilize a wide crossbar bus, and utilize RISC techniques and close to metal APIs and the next thing you know is you're creating Jurassic Park, The Matrix and Lord of the Rings just to name a few.
It seems Apple has indeed taken more than a few pages from the early SGI playbook. I think I could make more than a hand waving argument in stating that Apple with it's M1 CPU and it's homegrown GPU and it's homegrown Metal API is the "spiritual" successor to SGI.
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Originally posted by ehansin View Postto the Metal API, which the commenter claimed to be even more low-level that DX12 or Vulcan.
Vulkan is low level as in its API matches the hardware feature set of a proper modern GPU, and that is simply more then Apple's Toy Tile Render GPU.
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Originally posted by Jumbotron View Post
In fact AMDs eventual HyperTransport bus design was inspired in part by the crossbar design of the MIPS bus. Plus SGI was the inventor of OpenGL the graphics API we have come to know so well.
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Originally posted by stiiixy View PostThey (Google) theoretically could patch new features in to older Android versions, but that's never been their thing. Disposable (or, 'moving forward' in their opinion) is their approach.
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Originally posted by microcode View PostWould've been nice if their transitional library was a RenderScript implementation on Vulkán compute...
This is how Google operates. When they deprecate something, you'd better move before it gets yanked out from under you!
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Originally posted by Jumbotron View PostThat beast of a workstation could do things with a 300 Mhz MIPS CPU and VPU board ( what they called a GPU ) with 256 MB of RAM made in 1997 that my 1 Ghz AMD Dual Athlon with 1GB of RAM and an actual ATI GPU card couldn't do in 2005...
Funny enough, the O2's were the entry-level machines. For the Octanes to do similar, I think you needed a specialized video board, like you mentioned.
Neither of these machines could do the vast majority of 3D rendering as well as 2005-era PCs.
Originally posted by Jumbotron View PostIt seems Apple has indeed taken more than a few pages from the early SGI playbook. I think I could make more than a hand waving argument in stating that Apple with it's M1 CPU and it's homegrown GPU and it's homegrown Metal API is the "spiritual" successor to SGI.
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Originally posted by bug77 View Post
I'm "bitching" about people praising today something most people won't see for at least another 3 years.
The move itself is sound, but Google still haven't solved the problem of pushing their OS onto existing devices. In fact, they stopped trying and decided it's easier to just hide adoption numbers from the web instead.Last edited by Azrael5; 20 April 2021, 01:33 PM.
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