ImgTec Launches Programmable Shader Graphics Family
- Thread starter Kristof
- Start date
Performance
Clearly with a unified shader architecture you get either one - either 200Mpix/s or 2Mpoly/s, but obviously not both at the same time (in the lowest performance configuration they have).
Probably in real applications you apply a 0.4 factor to both numbers as you are sharing the same shader hardware and ALUs.
Also it's still open if the pixel fillrate number includes the overdraw factor - the word effective is used here, which seems to indicate that some overdraw factor in fact is present in the numbers, perhaps 2x.
Clearly with a unified shader architecture you get either one - either 200Mpix/s or 2Mpoly/s, but obviously not both at the same time (in the lowest performance configuration they have).
Probably in real applications you apply a 0.4 factor to both numbers as you are sharing the same shader hardware and ALUs.
Also it's still open if the pixel fillrate number includes the overdraw factor - the word effective is used here, which seems to indicate that some overdraw factor in fact is present in the numbers, perhaps 2x.
Roger Kohli
Newcomer
Would anyone like to speculate how they rendered the demos? Software simulation?
Megadrive1988
Veteran
hehe, PowerVR have taken the abbreviation of SuperGrafx: SGX, as the name for its nextgen mobile graphics family.
good to see PowerVR come out swingin' 8)
good to see PowerVR come out swingin' 8)
I am suprised neither feature set nor speed. (not that I would be disapointed either.) unified shaders was at first a bit suprise, but afterwards thinking, it is only logical step to forward and I think will see the others follow when the time comes. Even the timing seems to be reasonable, though it is always hard to analyze when we get first licensing deal from SGX. (if we get them... not all deals are press released.)
It seems to be available for licensing acording to press release, so I won't argue if it really is. (this seemed to be popular fun when Bitboys released their G32, G34 and G40. EVEN though there was immediate licensing deal announced with NEC.)
Basically SGX has same feature set (looking from OpenGL ES 2.0 API point of view) as G40, but it is faster. Technically it's one step forward from G40 with Unified Shader Architechture, which should help it with power consumption. This all from paper spec point of view of course.
It seems to be available for licensing acording to press release, so I won't argue if it really is. (this seemed to be popular fun when Bitboys released their G32, G34 and G40. EVEN though there was immediate licensing deal announced with NEC.)
Basically SGX has same feature set (looking from OpenGL ES 2.0 API point of view) as G40, but it is faster. Technically it's one step forward from G40 with Unified Shader Architechture, which should help it with power consumption. This all from paper spec point of view of course.
All licensing deals from IMG get announced when completed.
What's there to argue?
http://www.imgtec.com/News/Release/index.asp?ID=247
It was licensed before it was officially announced.
***edit: now that I recall it, the debate was about in what format exactly G3x/4x exactly were when they were announced.
PowerVR will most likely need proprietary extensions to support all functionalities that might not be included in OGL-ES 2.0. It exceeds dx9.0 and OGL2.0 specifications. At least in terms of a unified shader model (vertex/pixel/geometry shaders), I doubt there's anything missing for WGF2.0 compliance.
NEC really needs to get one of Bitboys' 3D cores into final products.
What's there to argue?
http://www.imgtec.com/News/Release/index.asp?ID=247
It was licensed before it was officially announced.
***edit: now that I recall it, the debate was about in what format exactly G3x/4x exactly were when they were announced.
PowerVR will most likely need proprietary extensions to support all functionalities that might not be included in OGL-ES 2.0. It exceeds dx9.0 and OGL2.0 specifications. At least in terms of a unified shader model (vertex/pixel/geometry shaders), I doubt there's anything missing for WGF2.0 compliance.
NEC really needs to get one of Bitboys' 3D cores into final products.
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Ailuros said:
That I was thinking too. Of course, you can always argue, if the extensions get used or the APIs extented to cover new features during the lifetime of the device, but there's not really any use for start speculation of that. No one knows for sure right now, because business is just so young.
hehe
NEC ain't their only deal. That is all I know. last year they made 1.6 Million Euro profit (turnover was 4.7 Million if I recal right from the Assembly 2005 presentation...) and I know there being deals that aren't announced. (it seems that not all of the deals get press coverage or press release. I do know that when ever there's deals that can announced, they will announce them. They need good publicity, because all that scum they are usually connected by their name.)afaik, G10 is used, but it's completely transparent for device user. (except if you ran SVG code for it of course, that will tell the difference.)
G12 looked a good core as well. Had a possiblity to take a looong good look of it (FPGA version connected to laptop via USB to control it.) at invitation only lounge on thursday evening. They about to release press kits of the FPGA version soon, so I think we will hear about then how it's like.
Integration of 3D cores comes in turtle speed; it should ramp up soon though.
Let's see when these cores will start getting integrated first. Like Dave said in the B3D newsblurb, it's not going to happen all that soon either. I'd be personally very surprised if I'd see a device powered with SGX lying on shelves prior to 2007.
Considering though how fast this market seems to move (almost 3x times as fast as the PC graphics market in it's infancy according to analysts), then it makes sense to try to keep up.
Publicity is one of the last factors that will drive in customers; experience and proven track record with IP licensing are on top of the list of priorities for large semiconductor manufacturers. Next comes development speed IMHO.
You mean a G12 or anything higher?
Let's see when these cores will start getting integrated first. Like Dave said in the B3D newsblurb, it's not going to happen all that soon either. I'd be personally very surprised if I'd see a device powered with SGX lying on shelves prior to 2007.
Considering though how fast this market seems to move (almost 3x times as fast as the PC graphics market in it's infancy according to analysts), then it makes sense to try to keep up.
Publicity is one of the last factors that will drive in customers; experience and proven track record with IP licensing are on top of the list of priorities for large semiconductor manufacturers. Next comes development speed IMHO.
You mean a G12 or anything higher?
I agree. 2007 earliest. There's no real demand for mobile 3D right now. no killer apps that would make everyone want device with 3D hw acc.Ailuros said:
Ailuros said:
It sure does grow fast, but when gimmick phone owners have real reason to own 3D accelerated phone, the market will explode. I would not be suprised if some models would be sold out all the time.
Ailuros said:
yeah, but in Bitboys case, do they have proven track record right now? at least not visible one, but the market is quite different than what PC side is. Not all things are released with a big press release.
The point is, if you don't have track record as the new comers usually don't, what's the next one? they do have proved their development speed: 12 months from G30 to G40.
Ailuros said:
The press release talks about G12 so I don't have any other reason believe anything else.
It has the most broad market placement, so getting it thru, would open quite few doors that might otherwise stay closed.
TEXAN said:
With die shrinks I could be that that rate might end up higher, if there's ever going to be a need for as much during it's lifetime.
No idea about the PSP or the bitboys cores, but you'll have a damn hard time finding sustainable 1M Polys/sec on those other two you just quoted.
However don't drop your pants just yet out of exitement; something tells me that ATI at least is not willing to sit idle this time. All they really need IMO is an IP licensing scheme for that market.
Nappe1 said:
There's a lot you can offload from the CPU with a 3D core; and it's not that all buyers really know these what exactly they've bought. Large manufacturers will continue to scale capabilities for multimedia and other related stuff on such devices. How many Dell Axim50v users really know what their PDA can really do?
Besides other markets like the car navigation systems are just setting off. Next comes mobile TV and GPS functionalities, yes even in future mobile phones.
Considering those were most likely chalkboard design timings, they don't come as a surprise at all.
That's exactly what I meant above; a G12 in FPGA format only just now. Is it more advanced than MBX and when exactly was MBX presented in FPGA format? You could easily say that it's NECs fault or whoever else's, but the next best reply would be that Bitboys itself has to start expanding development then.
I don't know with how many partners BB is currently dealing, but I have the feeling that if those were as many as IMG has right now, they might end being clustered and mostly from a manpower perspective.
Ailuros:
G12 was released in March 2005 and was demoed in 3GSM along with the G40. That is all I know. G40 has been available for licensing since August 2004 and G12 has been available for licensing since March 2005, so I really don't follow your logic here why G12 being now FPGA would make any difference for G40 licensing situation?
anyways, no use of continuing this conversation. You look the thing from your point of view and I from my point of view. Neither one exactly knows what's the deal with G40 nor SGX. both are just wanna bes thinking that they know more than they actually know. It does not matter even if I would say that G40 has been running in FPGA over a year already, because there's no way to prove it and what's that gonna change? not a darn thing. You could say that SGX is ready and running FPGA demos right now, but whose gonna prove it and what's that gonna change? not a darn thing either.
Fact is that SGX is better and faster on paper than G40, which again is better and faster on paper than MBX. If this order would be different on paper, then there should be something wrong, because there's at least a year between the launches.
G12 was released in March 2005 and was demoed in 3GSM along with the G40. That is all I know. G40 has been available for licensing since August 2004 and G12 has been available for licensing since March 2005, so I really don't follow your logic here why G12 being now FPGA would make any difference for G40 licensing situation?
anyways, no use of continuing this conversation. You look the thing from your point of view and I from my point of view. Neither one exactly knows what's the deal with G40 nor SGX. both are just wanna bes thinking that they know more than they actually know. It does not matter even if I would say that G40 has been running in FPGA over a year already, because there's no way to prove it and what's that gonna change? not a darn thing. You could say that SGX is ready and running FPGA demos right now, but whose gonna prove it and what's that gonna change? not a darn thing either.
Fact is that SGX is better and faster on paper than G40, which again is better and faster on paper than MBX. If this order would be different on paper, then there should be something wrong, because there's at least a year between the launches.
It hasn't much to do with G40's licening situation. I didn't hear personally being demoed anything in public at 3GSM, but don't take that as a fact since I obviously wasn't there.
The point of interest is NOT when each papertiger is available for licensing, but if and when integration starts. I was under the impression that G12 belongs to the first batch of their IP and hence I'm asking why it appears in devboards/FPGA only just now.
Don't you think that my profile doesn't fit such a description at all?
That wasn't my point either; I'm actually interested why integration takes so unbelievably long with Bitboys' IP and not not G34/40 because they're way too advanced for now, but smaller and simpler products of their first generation.
Something like that:
http://www.imgtec.com/Investors/Presentations/AGM05/index.asp?Slide=27
http://www.imgtec.com/Investors/Presentations/AGM05/index.asp?Slide=28
http://www.imgtec.com/Investors/Presentations/AGM05/index.asp?Slide=32
If I jump over to ATI's site multimedia Imageon integration looks like that:
http://www.ati.com/products/handheld/onboard.html#f
These are real products and albeit there's only one 3D phone from ATI, their success rate in the mobile phone market is quite sizeable.
Either NEC is not investing as much as they should/could in the technology or there's something I'm definitely missing here; that's the real point.
Ailuros said:
how many of end user products that use PowerVR MBX cores actually state having PowerVR MBX technology? (last time I checked, Dell Axim x50v had Intel 3d accelerator.)
afaik, NEC is delivering their LCD displays to quite few phone manufacturers and as we know, G10 is right now only core supporting SVG Tiny 1.1 on hardware. So, acording to this list: http://svg.org/special/svg_phones there's already quite few phones that can handle SVG content. It has been almost 3 years when G10 was announced to be included on NEC small screens.
which of those in the list are software implementations? I don't know. there might be few ones or many. No one knows for sure. Easiest way to find out is give it heavy SVG content to draw and you will notice the difference.
The point is, you can't really sure whenever your LCD has G10, if it is coming from NEC. the core is so small that it replaced column and row latchers on LCD itself and the whole interface side on main core could be left as untouched. Only way to find out is give it something to do for. On the case of phones, the SVG support is quite strong indicator that there can be some magic inside.
See I learned something today
In this case I just found out that:
a) the integration of SVG phones is deeper than I ever would have thought (whether software or hardware based)
b) my own current mobile phone is on that list
This one's dog slow with any moving content, can't tell about the others. I'm still happy with it; I just need a stable receiving signal and high manufacturing quality in a mobile.
In this case I just found out that:
a) the integration of SVG phones is deeper than I ever would have thought (whether software or hardware based)
b) my own current mobile phone is on that list
This one's dog slow with any moving content, can't tell about the others. I'm still happy with it; I just need a stable receiving signal and high manufacturing quality in a mobile.
