3 ms·

Is this really so different from any other mobile derived GPU?

refulgentis 2y ago
Idk, TIL, had a career in mobile for 15 years running and I didn't know this was a distinctive quality of mobile GPUs. (makes sense! but all that to say, I'm very interested to hear more, and I'll trade you an answer to that question: "maybe not! sounds like you got some smart stuff to share :)")
ferbivore 2y ago
Yes. Apple have their own graphics API. They were able to decide that, say, geometry shaders aren't worth the chip area or engineering effort to support. Other IHVs don't get that choice; for geometry shaders, for instance, they're part of both Vulkan and OpenGLES, there are games and benchmarks that use them, and customers (end-users, gamedevs, review/benchmark sites, SoC vendors) will evaluate GPUs based, in some small part, on how good their geometry shader support is. Same story for tessellation, transform feedback, and whatever else Apple dropped.
- fingerlocks 2y ago
  I don’t think it’s accurate to say Apple “dropped” these features. Tessellation is done with general purpose compute shaders. You can do the same with “geometry shaders” if the need arises as well
- dagmx 2y ago
  Other hardware vendors absolutely do the same. Geometry shaders are poor performers on several other vendors for precisely the same reason
  - ferbivore 2y ago
    At least some Qualcomm, Imagination and Broadcom GPUs support geometry shaders in hardware. Not entirely sure about Arm. To be fair, it could be the support isn't very good.
    - dagmx 2y ago
      Some do, but a lot will have their firmware actually do the translation into other compute types that align better with the hardware.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- rstat1 2y ago
  >>(end-users, gamedevs, review/benchmark sites, SoC vendors) will evaluate GPUs based, in some small part, on how good their geometry shader support is Do they? I can't remember ever seeing any mention of Geometry Shader performance in a GPU review I've read/watched. The one thing I've ever heard about it was about how bad they were.
  - lewispollard 2y ago
    Yeah, geometry shaders aren't even widely used, they weren't great in the first place and devs have moved on.

Idk, TIL, had a career in mobile for 15 years running and I didn't know this was a distinctive quality of mobile GPUs. (makes sense! but all that to say, I'm very interested to hear more, and I'll trade you an answer to that question: "maybe not! sounds like you got some smart stuff to share :)")

ferbivore 2y ago

Yes. Apple have their own graphics API. They were able to decide that, say, geometry shaders aren't worth the chip area or engineering effort to support. Other IHVs don't get that choice; for geometry shaders, for instance, they're part of both Vulkan and OpenGLES, there are games and benchmarks that use them, and customers (end-users, gamedevs, review/benchmark sites, SoC vendors) will evaluate GPUs based, in some small part, on how good their geometry shader support is. Same story for tessellation, transform feedback, and whatever else Apple dropped.

fingerlocks 2y ago
I don’t think it’s accurate to say Apple “dropped” these features. Tessellation is done with general purpose compute shaders. You can do the same with “geometry shaders” if the need arises as well
dagmx 2y ago
Other hardware vendors absolutely do the same. Geometry shaders are poor performers on several other vendors for precisely the same reason
- ferbivore 2y ago
  At least some Qualcomm, Imagination and Broadcom GPUs support geometry shaders in hardware. Not entirely sure about Arm. To be fair, it could be the support isn't very good.
  - dagmx 2y ago
    Some do, but a lot will have their firmware actually do the translation into other compute types that align better with the hardware.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
rstat1 2y ago
>>(end-users, gamedevs, review/benchmark sites, SoC vendors) will evaluate GPUs based, in some small part, on how good their geometry shader support is Do they? I can't remember ever seeing any mention of Geometry Shader performance in a GPU review I've read/watched. The one thing I've ever heard about it was about how bad they were.
- lewispollard 2y ago
  Yeah, geometry shaders aren't even widely used, they weren't great in the first place and devs have moved on.