ImgTec Launches Programmable Shader Graphics Family
- Thread starter Kristof
- Start date
TEXAN said:
If the TBDR advantages in small embedded/UMA architectures can't be surpassed, then theoretically at least other IHVs could easily consider using TBDRs of their own. As long as it wouldn't infringe IMG's patents, I don't see a problem there.
Did you ever hear that a startup company wouldn't theoretically be able to build an IMR, because either ATI or NVIDIA or others hold "too many patents"?
PowerVR has their own exclusive patents for it's own architecture, yet that doesn't exclude for anyone else (yes at least in theory) to build a deferred renderer if they'd want to.
The real reason why major IHVs would be reluctant to jump to DR, would be rather that they have an already large and existing technology portofolio and there it's much easier to try to use that one for ultra small dies, then develop a new fundamentally different core from scratch.
I think an img pr guy said himself that because they have patented the technique worldwide, it's very very difficult for competitors to do without infringing patents.
The fact that we haven't seen defered rendering by anyone else suggests that they are right. It is indeed very difficult to do without being taken down to the courts.
Alot of companies in the past have claimed to be able to have done it- there's a company in the US called PixelSquirt that claims it does it, there was gigapixel and there are others too.
Yet however nobody has ever brought one out to market and the simple reason is that if they did, IMGtec would have a field day with lawsuits.
These groups may hold their own patents but all the workable and worthwhile ones are held by Img.
They pioneered it, they invented it, it is therefore rightfully their's and only their's.
I hope SEGA SAMMY buys them out.
The fact that we haven't seen defered rendering by anyone else suggests that they are right. It is indeed very difficult to do without being taken down to the courts.
Alot of companies in the past have claimed to be able to have done it- there's a company in the US called PixelSquirt that claims it does it, there was gigapixel and there are others too.
Yet however nobody has ever brought one out to market and the simple reason is that if they did, IMGtec would have a field day with lawsuits.
These groups may hold their own patents but all the workable and worthwhile ones are held by Img.
They pioneered it, they invented it, it is therefore rightfully their's and only their's.
I hope SEGA SAMMY buys them out.
Did you say PR?
Those companies' failure to release a design of hardware is according to you the possibility of patent infringement?
a. W/o released hardware and a chance to have a closer look at it, you can't even know - and yes even IMG - if any patents have been really infringed.
b. Gigapixel lost the XBox Microsoft deal because they were unable to deliver on time.
What would you call the Falanx Mali by the way?
I don't want to even hear it. Not only don't they have the resources for a stunt like that, but I'd rather prefer companies like that to lay off their fingers from anything considering hardware design.
TEXAN said:
Tile based + early-Z.
Which would mean what exactly for your former assumptions? (yes assumptions). I wonder why hasn't anyone exlusively patented the Z-buffer yet?
There's a difference between patenting one's own implementation and claiming to have patented exclusively the whole approach. Granted there might be pitfalls for any non-experienced designers with TBDR, the only other question is if they'll be able to circumpass them without infringing any patents in the end. With as many talented and experienced engineers out there I don't have much reason to believe that it's entirely impossible though.
Megadrive1988
Veteran
I wish that the next Game Boy would use a PowerVR SGX core.
but assuming that ATI gets the nextgen Game Boy graphics contract (or already has it) I hope ATI can produce something equally as good as SGX. I have not been keeping track of ATI's advancements in mobile graphics for handhelds.
does ATI have anything that can compete with SGX now or on the horizon for the near future?
but assuming that ATI gets the nextgen Game Boy graphics contract (or already has it) I hope ATI can produce something equally as good as SGX. I have not been keeping track of ATI's advancements in mobile graphics for handhelds.
does ATI have anything that can compete with SGX now or on the horizon for the near future?
Lazy8s said:
Which is frankly a phenomenon we see way too often with any IP company. Even IMG/PowerVR hasn't been immun to those.
That was the GP-LP that Gigapixel had planned for the PDA/mobile market:
http://users.otenet.gr/~ailuros/GPLP.pdf
Kristof said:
They will be available, but the time is different question. In demo scene delays used to be more rule than exception. Nowadays things have been going rather well.
Megadrive1988 said:
based on paper specs, no one has anything that can compete with SGX right now. G40 is the closest thing, but it's slower and less flexible. (though both have full OpenGL ES 2.0 support, SGX goes beyond that.)
Last edited:
A CPU is a unified shader architecture.Patric said:... and ATI also has a patent on unified shader architecture, which would mean that ImgTec licenses that from ATI or ...
Perhaps you meant to say "ATI also has a patent on a unified shader architecture"
