Ray tracing on Apple Silicon?

[NT1440]

The other question is how "programmable" this RT hardware is. For example, can it ONLY walk a BVH tree and perform intersections? Or can it walk a generic pointer based data structure and apply a function to every end node?

As far as I know, nVidia's hardware can still only do Ray Tracing, which I find strange. You'd think, based on their history, they'd be defining "Node shaders" that operate as I described, to get more value out the hardware.

This is way out of my depth, but I believe the multiple wwdc sessions that go over a ray tracing are directly applicable to this new GPU. Apple tends to lay the groundwork for the upcoming hardware years in advance (AVP being the most obvious example with ARKIT). Ray Tracing has been part of iOS for a couple (few?) years now specially so “it just works” when the GPU that was released in A17 came to light. I’d check there for a concrete answer to your question.

Whatever is needed for RT on A17 is available today provided you follow Apple’s guidelines on how to implement it.

 

[Gudi]

Apple tends to lay the groundwork for the upcoming hardware years in advance.

Correct. Apple introducing its own proprietary Metal API in 2014 replacing OpenGL/Vulkan laid the groundwork for upcoming GPU hardware developments. This way they have full control over the abstraction layer between hardware and software. On one hand new versions of Metal can offer new frameworks to developers, like MetalFX upscaling. But on the other hand in the background and invisible to developers, Metal can redirect all API calls to the various parts of Apple's own processors, where they can be calculated the fastest and most efficiently. If there is a new Raytracing Engine on certain processors, only Apple needs to adapt Metal to the new silicon. The games don't need to be re-programmed for M3 or A17Pro, they run on Metal.

 

[leman]

This is way out of my depth, but I believe the multiple wwdc sessions that go over a ray tracing are directly applicable to this new GPU. Apple tends to lay the groundwork for the upcoming hardware years in advance (AVP being the most obvious example with ARKIT). Ray Tracing has been part of iOS for a couple (few?) years now specially so “it just works” when the GPU that was released in A17 came to light. I’d check there for a concrete answer to your question.

Whatever is needed for RT on A17 is available today provided you follow Apple’s guidelines on how to implement it.

All of this is correct, but answers a different question that what was asked

 

[diamond.g]

Correct. Apple introducing its own proprietary Metal API in 2014 replacing OpenGL/Vulkan laid the groundwork for upcoming GPU hardware developments. This way they have full control over the abstraction layer between hardware and software. On one hand new versions of Metal can offer new frameworks to developers, like MetalFX upscaling. But on the other hand in the background and invisible to developers, Metal can redirect all API calls to the various parts of Apple's own processors, where they can be calculated the fastest and most efficiently. If there is a new Raytracing Engine on certain processors, only Apple needs to adapt Metal to the new silicon. The games don't need to be re-programmed for M3 or A17Pro, they run on Metal.

It feels like the truth of the matter will be games will look to see what processor you are running on and enable or disable the ability to use ray tracing (just like they do for PC games). I don't think developers would enable it for all devices, otherwise Capcom would have allowed RT in Resident Evil Village, right (the grayed out button is right there taunting us)?

 

[leman]

It feels like the truth of the matter will be games will look to see what processor you are running on and enable or disable the ability to use ray tracing (just like they do for PC games). I don't think developers would enable it for all devices, otherwise Capcom would have allowed RT in Resident Evil Village, right (the grayed out button is right there taunting us)?

I assume that Metal will gain a new check for whether the device supports fast ray tracing. That would solve it.

 

[diamond.g]

I assume that Metal will gain a new check for whether the device supports fast ray tracing. That would solve it.

I believe that is how DX and Vulkan do it, though there are instances where the developer actually looks at the device as well and will enable or disable the feature (Ratchet and Clank on PC did this for AMD cards due to a driver bug).

 

[jeanlain]

I assume that Metal will gain a new check for whether the device supports fast ray tracing. That would solve it.

M3 and A17 will constitue a new "family" of Apple GPUs. I suppose developers chan check which family an Apple GPU belongs to.

 

[komuh]

Yup you'll have to just check MTLGPUFamily for proper usage of newest API only available on limited hardware as always.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

It feels like the truth of the matter will be games will look to see what processor you are running on and enable or disable the ability to use ray tracing (just like they do for PC games). I don't think developers would enable it for all devices, otherwise Capcom would have allowed RT in Resident Evil Village, right (the grayed out button is right there taunting us)?

I think the new games that were announced were only for the iPhone 15 Pro series, right? I wouldn’t be surprised if they just say these games are for A17 and up, no need to “check”.

 

[sack_peak]

I think the new games that were announced were only for the iPhone 15 Pro series, right? I wouldn’t be surprised if they just say these games are for A17 and up, no need to “check”.

It is likely you can run those games on newer Bionic chips without Ray Tracing and other features disabled.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

It is likely you can run those games on newer Bionic chips without Ray Tracing and other features disabled.

Yeah, after posting I saw that some (not all confirmed yet) are reporting support for everything back to M1’s.