"When one is a 'cultural critic', however, facts and reason are not too important."
- Peter Klein
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Query FailedULJarad
Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Neat. I'll need to do some more reading.

So, what's the deal with processors then? Will their role continue to dwindle in and out of games?
Matt Enright
Wednesday, March 4, 2009

GPUs will always lead CPUs for graphics simply because that's what they are designed to do - accelerate rendering. But it's interesting to see the roles change occasionally. Some developers have used PS3 Cells for post processing and the lighting pass of deferred shading, even though the GPU would do it faster. Those additional processors just don't have anything else to do and the video card already has it's work cut out for it.

GPU ray tracing is compelling largely because it opens up the possibilities of non-triangular world geometry. Isosurfaces, fractals, and voxels don't rasterize well. It also makes transparency and reflections very simple, which have plagued rasterization from day one.
Humus
Tuesday, March 3, 2009

GPU performance has been increasing much faster than CPU performance over the years, so the gap is actually increasing.
MGB
Tuesday, March 3, 2009

...and I always thought half the artistry of photography was using the shadow...
ULJarad
Monday, March 2, 2009

Do you still think that even with the introduction of multicore processors though? If both cpu and gpu performance double over two years (guestimation), I agree that the cpu would never overtake gpu, but do you not think doubling the number of cores every two years gives the cpu an advantage in the long run? Wouldn't it eventually lead to the cpu becoming powerful enough to rival the gpu as far as ray tracing is concerned?

I'd love to see a gpu vs cpu ray tracing demo.
Humus
Monday, March 2, 2009

You mean like on the CPU? I don't think CPUs ever will be fast enough to compete with GPUs. Ray tracing is certainly coming to the GPU though, but it'll still be a number of years before it gets close to mainstream. I don't think it will ever replace rasterization. Most likely you'll see people rasterize the primary rays and use ray tracing for secondary rays.
ULJarad
Sunday, March 1, 2009

A demo that doesn't require 10.1, Hazah!

I have a few questions though. What are your thoughts on ray tracing and its future with multicore processors? Would you consider writing a demo of one?
phillyx
Sunday, March 1, 2009

I bet that's not all ceiling cat is watching you do...
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