Parallel worlds

[WilHarris]

http://www.bit-tech.net/columns/2006..._worlds/1.html


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[Fusen]

hmmm, it's always fun looking at what will be the standards in 10 years ;p

[Fatboy]

"because pixels are colored based on what rays of like strike them. "

typo :P

Im still running an x800xl i can only dream of things like this.

[EK-MDi]

I wonder how long it will be until we achieve the required 450 million ray segs per second to achieve raytracing...
...I'm guessing just a few more years .

[DarkLord7854]

Originally Posted by EK-MDi

I wonder how long it will be until we achieve the required 450 million ray segs per second to achieve raytracing...
...I'm guessing just a few more years .

Not sure if thats sarcastic or whatnot, but if a single core P4 3.2 can do 100 million, then a quad core core 2 duo should be able to hit the 400 million easily considering how much higher a performance it has over the P4 line with lower clock speeds and a much higher FSB

[EK-MDi]

Originally Posted by DarkLord7854

Not sure if thats sarcastic or whatnot, but if a single core P4 3.2 can do 100 million, then a quad core core 2 duo should be able to hit the 400 million easily considering how much higher a performance it has over the P4 line with lower clock speeds and a much higher FSB

You're right. That was a bad guess .

[DarkReaper]

Although do bear in mind that the CPU also has to run the AI and game engine as well as make stuff pretty

[specofdust]

Yup, so dual core conroe may not be enough. But quad core would be.

This article is fantastic, it's one of the few things I've read in the tech world in the last 3-6 months that's got me enthusiastic and hopefull about the future. ATI being bought by AMD shook stuff up, quite possibly not for the better, but at least we can rely on Intel to bring us the capability to raytrace. Having seen some pictures of raytraced stuff, I gotta say, it blows even things like cyrsis way outta the water. You're talking near photo realism here.

If this is where the future is, then things are looking realisticly peachy.

[Ramble]

Not to mention GPUs should be much faster at this thing, so I'm thinking we're already looking at or above the 450mil.

[Firehed]

I think that would only be the case if the GPUs are designed around raytracing, or at least designed to be compatible. I was under the impression that they're not, but then again I could be way off there.

Anyways, excellent article. Like spec, I'm quite excited over the prospects of raytracting.

[OtakuHawk]

I do remember reading an article on why AMD aquired ATI If AMD and Intel are hurriedly working on micro-cores in order to be the first to market, it will be the ultimate in parallelism. like the author states in the article, raytracing is easily paralleled. so if you've got 52 micro cores, even at slower speeds (say 1 ghz) raytracing in realtime will be a snap.

[jezmck]

Nice explanation of raytracing, and an interesting article.


but I can't not say:

...properly reflected off of a solid surface...

just 'off' will do fine.

[Pookeyhead]

Surely if it were that simple, and linear in scaling, someone with a 4 processor opteron board, with dual cores in each would be showing off their real time raytracing by now? It's not as if we've got to sit around waiting for Kentsfield for quad cores. There are systems out there available now, that can have 8 cores. There's more to a game than the 3d, and raytracing is not the only physics calc going on either. Then there's the AI etc... oh, and sound, and interfacing, and whole loads of other stuff... Nah... I'm going to be the sceptic in this thread, and sit here like a great big party pooper, and say "Bah Humbug" a great deal... I think it's gonna be some times before this happens.

I've just heard too many predictions go horribly wrong in IT. For all the great changes since my first ever PC... a Pentium 200MMX, a great deal has also not changed. Conroe and Kentsfield are good, but they're not revolutionary, and it's not as if there aren't quad core alternatives that have been available for some time. Maybe having four physical chips is not as efficient as having them on the same die, but surely Kentfield will not be THAT much faster than four fast opterons on the same board? Am I missing something about parallelism here?

I'll just sit back and watch. I'm assuming Conroe and Kentsfield will be interchangable anyway, so it's not as if it's a big deal to see what happens when it's released, and people can jump on the core2duo bandwagon now, and upgrade later hopefully.

4 cores tho!! Even with the new Intels having lower power requirements, I'm starting to shudder at the thought of how much power these rigs will consume.

Great article though: Well written and amusing.

[ChromeX]

Originally Posted by DarkLord7854

Not sure if thats sarcastic or whatnot, but if a single core P4 3.2 can do 100 million, then a quad core core 2 duo should be able to hit the 400 million easily considering how much higher a performance it has over the P4 line with lower clock speeds and a much higher FSB

Yeah true, but thats assuming you use the entire core for graphics and nothing else. I guess if there was some sort of dual quad-core mobo planned for the future you could do it!

[Kipman725]

hmm what we need now is some programer to create a real time ray tracing demo and see how well our pcs can run it.

[DXR_13KE]

several cores = more performance....... what about the cell processor in a PS3? can that have enough power to do this?

[DeX]

Pookeyhead, bear in mind that we are only just beginning to believe of the possibility of real-time ray tracing with desktop PCs. In the past, raytracing has been firmly in realm of realistic (i.e. not real-time) graphics rendering. With intel and AMD churning out multi-core processors and the fact that AMD has bought a graphics company this would well be the start of a possible future of real time raytracing being done on our PCs. We're not saying it'll be here any time soon, just that it has sunddenly become a real possibility.

About the article, I don't get how games could be raytraced without textures. Most raytracing demos you see don't use textures but for a game surely they would be essential right?

[RotoSequence]

Someone took the red pill this morning

Great article; my mind has been poking at the very tips of these concepts on occasion; I dont have the gift of being able to tie it all together and saying it so eloquently. Great job

[Sinner666]

Originally Posted by Pookeyhead

Surely if it were that simple, and linear in scaling, someone with a 4 processor opteron board, with dual cores in each would be showing off their real time raytracing by now? It's not as if we've got to sit around waiting for Kentsfield for quad cores. There are systems out there available now, that can have 8 cores. There's more to a game than the 3d, and raytracing is not the only physics calc going on either. Then there's the AI etc... oh, and sound, and interfacing, and whole loads of other stuff... Nah... I'm going to be the sceptic in this thread, and sit here like a great big party pooper, and say "Bah Humbug" a great deal... I think it's gonna be some times before this happens.

I've just heard too many predictions go horribly wrong in IT. For all the great changes since my first ever PC... a Pentium 200MMX, a great deal has also not changed. Conroe and Kentsfield are good, but they're not revolutionary, and it's not as if there aren't quad core alternatives that have been available for some time. Maybe having four physical chips is not as efficient as having them on the same die, but surely Kentfield will not be THAT much faster than four fast opterons on the same board? Am I missing something about parallelism here?

I'll just sit back and watch. I'm assuming Conroe and Kentsfield will be interchangable anyway, so it's not as if it's a big deal to see what happens when it's released, and people can jump on the core2duo bandwagon now, and upgrade later hopefully.

4 cores tho!! Even with the new Intels having lower power requirements, I'm starting to shudder at the thought of how much power these rigs will consume.

Great article though: Well written and amusing.

Wouldn't it be safe to assume that a system using two or more quad core proc's should be able to realistically handle a game using raytracing? Sure power consumption would be a monster, but with these 5.25" 250w supplemental psu's and 1kw main PSU's it shouldn't be THAT much of problem for the well off enthusiast. Right?

I'm personally under the semi-informed/semi-educated opinion that games featureing raytracing are 5yrs or less in the future. Would I stake a sizeable bet to that? HELL NO! But I'd put a decent figure to it.

[FIBRE+]

Nice article... interesting read and good explanation of all the tech stuff

So if raytracing was a reality now, how would it effect how games are made?