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No, this is about HW architectures. While they are likely evolving towards one a other there are tile based (like Imagination and ARM Mali) And immediate mode (

No, this is about HW architectures. While they are likely evolving towards one a other there are tile based (like Imagination and ARM Mali) And immediate mode (Nvidia AMD) that both implement the same APIs (OpenGL, Vulkan etc). All these HW architectures are modern and in use.

monocasa 5y ago
Interestingly, Nvidia has been using tile based rasterizers for a bit too. https://www.techpowerup.com/231129/on-nvidias-tile-based-rendering https://www.techpowerup.com/231129/on-nvidias-tile-based-ren...
- Arelius 5y ago
  It's been often quoted that Nvidia has switched to tile based for their Desktop renderers, but I haven't seen a source that confirms this. I suspect this is speculation due to changes in raster order that produce side-effects that look tiled even though they aren't.
  - ribit 5y ago
    This has been empirically tested on multiple occasions. There is an article on realwordtechnologies discussing this, and the results have been related for newer AMD GPUs as well. I have a little tool for macOS that tests these things out, and the Navi GPU on my MacBook is definitely a tiler (the Gen10 Intel GPU is not).
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - Arelius 5y ago
      It's brought up in multiple other comments, so I won't bother going into detail, but the empirical testing, is flawed and is actually measuring changes in other details about thread launch behavior.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
opencl 5y ago
Basically all modern GPU architectures implement tiled rasterization. NVIDIA has been doing it since Maxwell (2014) and AMD has been doing it since Vega (2017). Even Intel has been doing it for a few years now starting with their Gen 11 (2019) GPUs.
- Arelius 5y ago
  Those are going to require some serious citations. I'm quite sure most desktop GPUs don't run as tiled renderers at least under normal circumstances.
  - monocasa 5y ago
    AMD has even talked publicly about how their rasterizer can run in a TBDR mode that they call DSBR. https://pcper.com/2017/01/amd-vega-gpu-architecture-preview-redesigned-memory-architecture/2/ https://pcper.com/2017/01/amd-vega-gpu-architecture-preview-...
  - ryuuchin 5y ago
    > Specifically, Maxwell and Pascal use tile-based immediate-mode rasterizers that buffer pixel output, instead of conventional full-screen immediate-mode rasterizers. https://www.realworldtech.com/tile-based-rasterization-nvidia-gpus/ https://www.realworldtech.com/tile-based-rasterization-nvidi... He describes it as "tile-based immediate mode" in the article and the video should go into more detail about it. It's been a while since I watched it.
    - cma 5y ago
      The parent article already discusses that article, saying those GPUs don't use TBR in areas where the primitive count is too high or something: > Another class of hybrid architecture is one that is often referred to as tile-based immediate-mode rendering. As dissected in this article[1], this hybrid architecture is used since NVIDIA’s Maxwell GPUs. Does that mean that this architecture is like a TBR one, or that it shares all benefits of both worlds? Well, not really… What the article and the video fails to show is what happens when you increase the primitive count. Guillemot’s test application doesn’t support large primitive counts, but the effect is already visible if we crank up both the primitive and attribute count. After a certain threshold it can be noted that not all primitives are rasterized within a tile before the GPU starts rasterizing the next tile, thus we’re clearly not talking about a traditional TBR architecture. [1] https://www.realworldtech.com/tile-based-rasterization-nvidia-gpus/ https://www.realworldtech.com/tile-based-rasterization-nvidi...

monocasa 5y ago

Interestingly, Nvidia has been using tile based rasterizers for a bit too. https://www.techpowerup.com/231129/on-nvidias-tile-based-rendering https://www.techpowerup.com/231129/on-nvidias-tile-based-ren...

Arelius 5y ago
It's been often quoted that Nvidia has switched to tile based for their Desktop renderers, but I haven't seen a source that confirms this. I suspect this is speculation due to changes in raster order that produce side-effects that look tiled even though they aren't.
- ribit 5y ago
  This has been empirically tested on multiple occasions. There is an article on realwordtechnologies discussing this, and the results have been related for newer AMD GPUs as well. I have a little tool for macOS that tests these things out, and the Navi GPU on my MacBook is definitely a tiler (the Gen10 Intel GPU is not).
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - Arelius 5y ago
    It's brought up in multiple other comments, so I won't bother going into detail, but the empirical testing, is flawed and is actually measuring changes in other details about thread launch behavior.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

opencl 5y ago

Basically all modern GPU architectures implement tiled rasterization. NVIDIA has been doing it since Maxwell (2014) and AMD has been doing it since Vega (2017). Even Intel has been doing it for a few years now starting with their Gen 11 (2019) GPUs.

Arelius 5y ago
Those are going to require some serious citations. I'm quite sure most desktop GPUs don't run as tiled renderers at least under normal circumstances.
- monocasa 5y ago
  AMD has even talked publicly about how their rasterizer can run in a TBDR mode that they call DSBR. https://pcper.com/2017/01/amd-vega-gpu-architecture-preview-redesigned-memory-architecture/2/ https://pcper.com/2017/01/amd-vega-gpu-architecture-preview-...
- ryuuchin 5y ago
  > Specifically, Maxwell and Pascal use tile-based immediate-mode rasterizers that buffer pixel output, instead of conventional full-screen immediate-mode rasterizers. https://www.realworldtech.com/tile-based-rasterization-nvidia-gpus/ https://www.realworldtech.com/tile-based-rasterization-nvidi... He describes it as "tile-based immediate mode" in the article and the video should go into more detail about it. It's been a while since I watched it.
  - cma 5y ago
    The parent article already discusses that article, saying those GPUs don't use TBR in areas where the primitive count is too high or something: > Another class of hybrid architecture is one that is often referred to as tile-based immediate-mode rendering. As dissected in this article[1], this hybrid architecture is used since NVIDIA’s Maxwell GPUs. Does that mean that this architecture is like a TBR one, or that it shares all benefits of both worlds? Well, not really… What the article and the video fails to show is what happens when you increase the primitive count. Guillemot’s test application doesn’t support large primitive counts, but the effect is already visible if we crank up both the primitive and attribute count. After a certain threshold it can be noted that not all primitives are rasterized within a tile before the GPU starts rasterizing the next tile, thus we’re clearly not talking about a traditional TBR architecture. [1] https://www.realworldtech.com/tile-based-rasterization-nvidia-gpus/ https://www.realworldtech.com/tile-based-rasterization-nvidi...