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The actual capabilities of a modern AMD or Intel x86 chip are staggering compared to the zombie-like procession of application experiences they are forced to su
by bob1029 4y ago
The actual capabilities of a modern AMD or Intel x86 chip are staggering compared to the zombie-like procession of application experiences they are forced to support every day.
In the 90s, we had shooters running at playable frame rates using software rasterization on a single thread. Now from this vantage point, think about the "what if you had a 1000x faster CPU" thought experiment that was posted to HN recently. Except, make it more like 100,000x faster...
If we had taken SIMD a bit further on the CPU and kept our extremely scrappy software engineering practices, I think it's possible the GPU might not have ever really emerged as a major consumer product. Recent game engine tech, such as Nanite's software rasterizer, is starting to shift ideologies back the other way now too.
- klysm 4y ago> it's possible the GPU might not have ever really emerged as a major consumer product I’m really skeptical about this take, the gains from the GPU architecture are too large to pass up on
- _the_inflator 4y agoParent poster seems to be from Intel. They argued very similar about specialized CPUs back then. "You only need one chip" Then came 3dfx, which was a blast. You can even call the Amiga Blitter as one of the first GPUs, at least a specialized graphics chip. Same goes for coprocessors, like a math unit in a 486DX for example.
- scaredginger 4y agoYeah, especially considering Quake 3D was the killer GPU app
- mattnewport 4y agoNanite is a software rasterizer running as a compute shader on the GPU though, it still requires the power of a GPU but takes advantage of the increased flexibility of modern GPUs.