3 ms·

Will M3/M4 need completely different drivers?

by UncleOxidant 2y ago

wmf 2y ago
Probably. Apple made major changes to the GPU in M3.
- a_wild_dandan 2y ago
  What were the major differences?
- coldtea 2y ago
  Major base changes, or just added more stuff on top of the same base?
  - wtallis 2y ago
    https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/apple-dynamic-caching-on-m3-gpu.63419/ https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/apple-dynamic-caching-on-... Changing the register file into a cache sounds like a major base change. Raytracing is a major feature added on top of existing functionality. So I'd say the answer is: plenty of both.
  - ferbivore 2y ago
    M3 has mesh shader support. The geometry pipeline they inherited from PowerVR fundamentally doesn't support them, for reasons that go way over my head. They probably changed a good chunk of it.
    - olliej 2y ago
      > for reasons that go way over my head In fairness to you I think a lot of the stuff involving hardware goes over everyone's heads :D I've seen comments in a number of articles (and I think a few comments in this thread) saying that there are a few features in Vulcan/opengl/direct3d that were standardized ("standardized" in the D3D case?)/required that turned out to be really expensive to implement, hard to implement fast in hardware anyway, and not necessarily actually useful in practice. I think geometry shaders may have been one of those cases but I can't recall for sure.
      - ferbivore 2y ago
        Mesh shaders are actually useful. Or at least game engine people love them, which was not the case for geometry shaders or even tessellation really. They are extremely painful to add support for though. Aside from Apple I don't think any mobile IHVs have a working implementation.
        olliej 2y ago
        I think (prior to this article) I had assumed they were synonymous :D
  - sroussey 2y ago
    How it handles memory and registers is quite different.
    - TylerE 2y ago
      How much will this matter to (somewhat graphics demanding) end users? I'm somewhat eagerly awaiting swapping out my M1 Studio with the M4 Studio that is all but confirmed to be coming at some point next year... More GPU grunt would certainly make me happy. Even the M1 is a far more competent gaming machine than I expected but I came from an i9/3080 machine so, well, more is more, as long as they can keep it near silent and relatively cool running.
      - sroussey 2y ago
        The GPU speed, like the number of GPU cores, hasn’t moved a lot. Clock speed has moved up a bit.
hi_hi 2y ago
I think the answer is yes. I'm making assumptions based on this part of Alyssas talk a couple of weeks ago where she talks about M3 having specific driver support for raytracing which doesn't exist in previous versions. https://youtu.be/pDsksRBLXPk?t=2895 https://youtu.be/pDsksRBLXPk?t=2895 The whole thing is worth watching to be honest, it's a privilege to watch someone share their deep knowledge and talent in such an engaging and approachable way.
- olliej 2y ago
  ooh, I missed this, thanks for the link!
hellavapid 2y ago
'twould be very apple

Will M3/M4 need completely different drivers?

wmf 2y ago

Probably. Apple made major changes to the GPU in M3.

a_wild_dandan 2y ago
What were the major differences?
coldtea 2y ago
Major base changes, or just added more stuff on top of the same base?
- wtallis 2y ago
  https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/apple-dynamic-caching-on-m3-gpu.63419/ https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/apple-dynamic-caching-on-... Changing the register file into a cache sounds like a major base change. Raytracing is a major feature added on top of existing functionality. So I'd say the answer is: plenty of both.
- ferbivore 2y ago
  M3 has mesh shader support. The geometry pipeline they inherited from PowerVR fundamentally doesn't support them, for reasons that go way over my head. They probably changed a good chunk of it.
  - olliej 2y ago
    > for reasons that go way over my head In fairness to you I think a lot of the stuff involving hardware goes over everyone's heads :D I've seen comments in a number of articles (and I think a few comments in this thread) saying that there are a few features in Vulcan/opengl/direct3d that were standardized ("standardized" in the D3D case?)/required that turned out to be really expensive to implement, hard to implement fast in hardware anyway, and not necessarily actually useful in practice. I think geometry shaders may have been one of those cases but I can't recall for sure.
    - ferbivore 2y ago
      Mesh shaders are actually useful. Or at least game engine people love them, which was not the case for geometry shaders or even tessellation really. They are extremely painful to add support for though. Aside from Apple I don't think any mobile IHVs have a working implementation.
      - olliej 2y ago
        I think (prior to this article) I had assumed they were synonymous :D
- sroussey 2y ago
  How it handles memory and registers is quite different.
  - TylerE 2y ago
    How much will this matter to (somewhat graphics demanding) end users? I'm somewhat eagerly awaiting swapping out my M1 Studio with the M4 Studio that is all but confirmed to be coming at some point next year... More GPU grunt would certainly make me happy. Even the M1 is a far more competent gaming machine than I expected but I came from an i9/3080 machine so, well, more is more, as long as they can keep it near silent and relatively cool running.
    - sroussey 2y ago
      The GPU speed, like the number of GPU cores, hasn’t moved a lot. Clock speed has moved up a bit.

hi_hi 2y ago

I think the answer is yes. I'm making assumptions based on this part of Alyssas talk a couple of weeks ago where she talks about M3 having specific driver support for raytracing which doesn't exist in previous versions. https://youtu.be/pDsksRBLXPk?t=2895 https://youtu.be/pDsksRBLXPk?t=2895 The whole thing is worth watching to be honest, it's a privilege to watch someone share their deep knowledge and talent in such an engaging and approachable way.

olliej 2y ago
ooh, I missed this, thanks for the link!

hellavapid 2y ago

'twould be very apple