What are Move Engines in Xbox One and PS4?

Niebotskick,

I think it is very possible that instead of four "moveengines" way may see a couple dozen performing a wider variety of functions or making communication between the CPU and GPU more efficient.

 

we been here at b3d discussing hardware for a long time. You're not the first to ask and likely won't be the last. We've really covered all the hardware in XBO.

https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/what-are-move-engines-in-xbox-one-and-ps4.58102/

 

The purpose of DMA engines is to do memory transfers and fills in background, while the GPU compute units can concentrate on real work. DirectX 12 and Vulkan expose DMA engines directly (DX12 copy queue, Vulkan transfer queue). DMA engines can usually do simple transforms, such as memory layout swizzling (tiling/detiling) and format conversions.

Good reading if you are interested about detailed specs:
https://www.khronos.org/registry/vulkan/specs/1.0/html/vkspec.html#clears
https://www.khronos.org/registry/vulkan/specs/1.0/html/vkspec.html#copies

 

Some DMA engines can also do on the fly compression/decompression.
They aren't magical units of incredible hidden power for sure ^^

 

I don't see why consoles couldn't incorporate more fixed function engines to accelerate certain tasks or help the system overcome specific weaknesses. My understanding is that they can be far more efficient than more generalized hardware. So, for example, MS could make a list of tasks they expect will be performed frequently on the Scorpio and include fixed function hardware for those tasks.

 

There are many fixed function parts.
But there will always be a balance between using space on something that is fixed instead, of to general flexible resources.
Some fixed function components that's already there (x1):
video encoding/decoding
general decompression
shape = audio block

These aren't including the fixed function parts of the gpu pipeline.
What do you have in mind that's not already there?