New PowerVR chip details emerge.

[ronaldo]

http://www.arm.com/armtech.nsf/html/MBX3D?OpenDocument

I figure that this was always going to be PVRs niche in life.

The top of the range core looks to be a twin pipe, and have h/w bump mapping. Not bad at all.

 

[Nexus]

This PDF is more interesting:
http://www.arm.com/support.nsf/htmlall/050DD98DAA0FF6B280256B570046543E/$File/ARM3D_Flyer_0127-2(3).pdf

It is an unbelievable chip, something only PowerVR is able to built.

640000 transistors with dual pipe and geometry engine, ~120mW in 0.13.

 

[ronaldo]

640K gates <> 640k transistors. SRAM gates have 6 transistors per bit, other logic gates will contain more. Still it's very impressive.

Here's an intrigueing excerpt from the pdf

All ARM 3D graphics acceleration- enabled cores
support full- scene anti- aliasing, providing
smoother, more realistic graphics at mobile
display resolutions. HX cores incorporate
FSAA4FreeTM technology which minimises the
peformance impact that anti- aliasing has on
rendering.

Wonder what that could mean?

 

[Ailuros]

Wonder what that could mean?

I can´t think of anything else than Multisampling on a Tiler.

 

[CeiserSöze]

I asked David Harold at Cebit about the FSAA on the MBX and he told me that it was a supersampling-method...

 

[mboeller]

I asked David Harold at Cebit about the FSAA on the MBX and he told me that it was a supersampling-method...

How could they do this? I could imagine that it is possible to do the texturing without higher bandwidth, cause the needed textures are already in the cache and an tiler "knows" what to texture beforehand.

But how could it be possible to have 4 texturing units (for one AAed pixel) within this small gate-budget and still output up to 240Mpixel/sec @ 120MHz ?

 

[Ailuros]

Hmmm could be Ceiser is correct....

mboeller,

Although not sure I wouldn't guess that MBX has more than 2 pipelines/1TMU.

I did a simple test and although I don't think it's within comparable measures have a look at those:

K2@145mhz (I'm too bored to edit the registry and the slider allows downclocking only down to 145):

q3a/320x240x32/trilinear/all options maxed/TC on: 114.5fps
same settings 4xFSAA: 109.5fps

Hopefully I'm not shooting my own foot here but at least the fillrate (being at 290MPps) is just one notch higher than 240.

edit: mixed up the scores heh

 

[mboeller]

Ailuros;

So You think that the fillrate is high enough to make FSAA "free".
OK; that should/could be correct,
but IMHO then you cannot call the FSAA free "spec-wise".

By the way : nice PDA/phone : http://www.psionplace.com/articles/2002/3/2002-3-5-Sony-Ericsson-Unveils.html

If the MBX targets something like this, I'm on board

 

[Ailuros]

Ailuros;

So You think that the fillrate is high enough to make FSAA "free".
OK; that should/could be correct,
but IMHO then you cannot call the FSAA free "spec-wise".

By the way : nice PDA/phone : http://www.psionplace.com/articles/2002/3/2002-3-5-Sony-Ericsson-Unveils.html

If the MBX targets something like this, I'm on board

Since the claims are for mobile resolutions ( up to 320x240 note: 320x240 isn't exactly small for a PDA rather the contrary), they clarify that FSAA4free is a feature for HX cores only and my scores indicate only a minimal drop with 4xFSAA on, it's what I would call free FSAA (under the condition that they don't claim it for 640x480).

Who cares about specs when the architecture delivers? To be frank I don't care about PDA's a bit; not to speak to game on devices like that.

In any case I remember Harold claiming that they got as far to get 30fps (I guess he meant Tomb Raider) with FSAA on, while have it running at about 1/5th of it's speed. Considering the newsblurbs from the Cebit indicating 14mhz clockspeed it's about 1/5th of the low-end 80mhz version.

I'm not sure if games will be ported for those devices "as they are" or if those will be trimmed down versions, but I don't expect to see Comanche 4 running on those either

edit:

That is in fact a nice mobile, yet I figure it'll cost an arm and a leg at launch. If I consider that my rather crappy T28s has a hard time displaying simple text and browsing it's menu than any improved sollution is several steps up, not to speak a 3D gaming capable device of similar size.

 

[PVR_Extremist]

Hi,

We saw the MBX in action on Monday and I must say its the most impressive piece of PowerVR technology I have yet seen. The Vertex Geometry Processor which is built in to the core is powerful. Dave Harold showed us Vertex Shading demo's, the effect of FSAA on image quality (at that resolution its absolutely necessary or the definition of edges and text goes down the pan), T&L demo's, bumpmapping, you name it.

It was running at 14Mhz, but both the guys there said that it was between a 5th and a 10th of its intended speed, on a .13Micron process.

We have a 3 part article of our visit to IMGTEC HQ and its available here

http://www.pvr-extremist.com

part 1 which talks about the demo room and K2SE (in part) is up already.
part 2 is an interview in the pub which rocks (due tonight)
part 3 is an entire transcript of the MBX demo with screenshots (due up on friday)

Have fun reading

 

[Captain Chickenpants]

Aha, so it was you who invaded my office.
I don't know they send a stream of visitors through without a by your leave.
Anyway glad you enjoyed your visit.

 

[PVR_Extremist]

So which one were you then?

Post a pic up

 

[Captain Chickenpants]

I ain't posting a picture of myself!

I am the guy in the back left corner as you enter our office, (assuming you didn't go into several offices) hidden behind a dirty great big monitor.

 

[Kristof]

A picture of Captain Chickenpants... eeeuwwhh gross...

 

[mboeller]

Hi,

We have a 3 part article of our visit to IMGTEC HQ and its available here

http://www.pvr-extremist.com

part 1 which talks about the demo room and K2SE (in part) is up already.
part 2 is an interview in the pub which rocks (due tonight)
part 3 is an entire transcript of the MBX demo with screenshots (due up on friday)

Have fun reading

Why oh why can I visit Your site only with an IE5.X or higher; why not with an Opera5.12 or an good old netscape 4.7X. Due to this I visit Your site only when I have to.

for all the others with problems; here are the direct links to the articles :

No1 : http://www.pvr-extremist.com/PC/imgtecvisit02_1.asp?Section=PC

No2 : http://www.pvr-extremist.com/PC/imgtecvisit02_2.asp?Section=PC

No3 (hopefully) : http://www.pvr-extremist.com/PC/imgtecvisit02_3.asp?Section=PC

 

[PVR_Extremist]

Apologies for that. I'll get Steve on it right away.

To be honest I know he tests on Netscape, but I dont think he tests on Opera.

Soz

 

[Ailuros]

I ain't posting a picture of myself!

I am the guy in the back left corner as you enter our office, (assuming you didn't go into several offices) hidden behind a dirty great big monitor.

Dirty, great and big? I´m not sure what to make of that....

Kristof,

Haven´t dealt with Photoshop seriously quite a while. Someone better watch out