Why does not Apple use any RT cores in their SoC?

[exoticSpice]

We know that Apple uses media engines to speed up video editing that's great.

But what about 3d based workflows like blender. Hardware based RT cores helps 3D rendering in big way.

Look at RTX 3000 series, they are great at those workflows due to RT cores to speed up.

Will we see them in M2 or M2 Pro/Ultra because if we don't Apple will be behind in the GPU space!

 

[BootLoxes]

I am hoping they will add them in the M3 chips

 

[januarydrive7]

Gotta hold out stuff for later releases. They have the licenses from imagination, so it’s just a matter of time.

 

[exoticSpice]

Gotta hold out stuff for later releases. They have the licenses from imagination, so it’s just a matter of time.

How can they hold off when the competition has RT cores. Apple said M1 Ultra is faster than RTX 3090 in what video ediitng. Sure.

But in Ray tracing? heck no. That's why Apple's graphs are bad.

 

[JimmyjamesEU]

How can they hold off when the competition has RT cores. Apple said M1 Ultra is faster than RTX 3090 in what video ediitng. Sure.

But in Ray tracing? heck no. That's why Apple's graphs are bad.

I agree. Why should we trust Nvidia when they are so much worse than Apple on video editing? Terrible graphs that only concentrate on ray tracing.

 

[Homy]

Don't think they're holding off but developing it. They made the deal with Imagination the same year they launched M1. It means they were already done with the M1 design and couldn't add Ray tracing. Now after M1 I think we're going to see new stuff. Maybe already with Mac Pro M2 to make a power workstation for 3D. It also takes time to optimize the software to have something to show at launch.

 

[exoticSpice]

I agree. Why should we trust Nvidia when they are so much worse than Apple on video editing? Terrible graphs that only concentrate on ray tracing.

AMD, Intel and even Nvidia show real world apps in their presentations but Apple just shows vague graphs

 

[tmoerel]

We know that Apple uses media engines to speed up video editing that's great.

But what about 3d based workflows like blender. Hardware based RT cores helps 3D rendering in big way.

Look at RTX 3000 series, they are great at those workflows due to RT cores to speed up.

Will we see them in M2 or M2 Pro/Ultra because if we don't Apple will be behind in the GPU space!

Perhaps because Ray Tracing is not part of the use cases Apple develops their machine towards.

There are two uses for RT:
- 3d design, which is done by such a small group of people that developing RT for them is just too expensive
- Gaming, which Apple does not seem to care much about

So in the end RT is more a bragging-rights factor than something bringing in cash. And that might be the reason you don't see it in Apple Silicon yet.

 

[tmoerel]

I agree. Why should we trust Nvidia when they are so much worse than Apple on video editing? Terrible graphs that only concentrate on ray tracing.

I soo agree. A friend just built a Wintel/Nvidia power rig as he was getting frustrated editing 6k h265. His rig works OK apart from back scrubbing and export times (long GOP formats are hell to back scrub as going back one frame needs to build the whole sequence of frames from the last keyframe). OK for a big power hungry desktop.
And then I have shown him my new MBP 16" M1 Max and he dropped off his seat. All smooth editing his footage and backscrubbing like in ProRes. And all that on a laptop....on battery......
So yes, Nvidia is much worse at video editing than an M1 Max at 4x the power consumption.

 

[exoticSpice]

- 3d design, which is done by such a small group of people that developing RT for them is just too expensive

Then why did apple join blender foundation which is 3d design.

 

[exoticSpice]

I soo agree. A friend just built a Wintel/Nvidia power rig as he was getting frustrated editing 6k h265. His rig works OK apart from back scrubbing and export times (long GOP formats are hell to back scrub as going back one frame needs to build the whole sequence of frames from the last keyframe). OK for a big power hungry desktop.
And then I have shown him my new MBP 16" M1 Max and he dropped off his seat. All smooth editing his footage and backscrubbing like in ProRes. And all that on a laptop....on battery......
So yes, Nvidia is much worse at video editing than an M1 Max at 4x the power consumption.

That's due to the media engine, Nivdia could easily add that in their GPUs next

 

[Boil]

M2 at the earliest, M4 at the latest...?

 

[leman]

It is very likely that they are working on this type of technology. Still, it is far from trivial to have hardware support for ray tracing. And “RT cores” are likely very different in reality than what Nvidia marketing suggests.

 

[diamond.g]

M2 at the earliest, M4 at the latest...?

Probably about the same time they add AV1 hardware en(/de)coders, lol

 

[leman]

Probably about the same time they add AV1 hardware en(/de)coders, lol

Well, that is a political issue, so who knows if it every going to happen

 

[diamond.g]

It is very likely that they are working on this type of technology. Still, it is far from trivial to have hardware support for ray tracing. And “RT cores” are likely very different in reality than what Nvidia marketing suggests.

Maybe Apple can come up with a hardware based dynamic BVH solution. That would be pretty cool (as far as I know neither AMD or nvidia have an on GPU means to recompute the BVH). Or maybe Apple would come up with a RT solution that isn't blackbox like nvidia.

Well, that is a political issue, so who knows if it every going to happen

Fair point, lol.

 

[leman]

Maybe Apple can come up with a hardware based dynamic BVH solution. That would be pretty cool (as far as I know neither AMD or nvidia have an on GPU means to recompute the BVH). Or maybe Apple would come up with a RT solution that isn't blackbox like nvidia.

Yeah, that would be best. I have the impression that Apple wants their RT to be very programmable. In the end, the problem boils down to coalescing memory access and execution paths so that GPU parallelism can be harnessed properly. It is not a trivial problem, but it can be solved.

 

[Xiao_Xi]

Imagination has classified ray tracing solutions into six levels.

• Level 0 – Legacy Solutions
• Level 1 – Software on Traditional GPUs
• Level 2 – Ray/Box and Ray/Tri Testers in Hardware
• Level 3 – Bounding Volume Hierarchy (BVH) Processing in Hardware
• Level 4 – BVH Processing with Coherency Sorting in Hardware
• Level 5 – Coherent BVH Processing with Scene Hierarchy Generator in Hardware

They claim that their solution is at level 4. At what level are the ray-tracing solutions from Nvidia and AMD? What level could Apple's solution reach?

Ray Tracing - Imagination

A revolutionary 3D graphics technology that mimics how light behaves in the real world to create visuals with astonishing realism.

www.imaginationtech.com

 

[diamond.g]

Imagination has classified ray tracing solutions into six levels.

• Level 0 – Legacy Solutions
• Level 1 – Software on Traditional GPUs
• Level 2 – Ray/Box and Ray/Tri Testers in Hardware
• Level 3 – Bounding Volume Hierarchy (BVH) Processing in Hardware
• Level 4 – BVH Processing with Coherency Sorting in Hardware
• Level 5 – Coherent BVH Processing with Scene Hierarchy Generator in Hardware

They claim that their solution is at level 4. At what level are the ray-tracing solutions from Nvidia and AMD? What level could Apple's solution reach?

Ray Tracing - Imagination

A revolutionary 3D graphics technology that mimics how light behaves in the real world to create visuals with astonishing realism.

www.imaginationtech.com

nvidia is 3, AMD I believe is 2.

 

[Janichsan]

There are two uses for RT:
- 3d design, which is done by such a small group of people that developing RT for them is just too expensive
- Gaming, which Apple does not seem to care much about

How do you define "3d design"?

Raytracing is used in film, TV, product design, architecture, high profile data visualisations,... There are far more uses than you might think.

 

[leman]

Imagination has classified ray tracing solutions into six levels.

• Level 0 – Legacy Solutions
• Level 1 – Software on Traditional GPUs
• Level 2 – Ray/Box and Ray/Tri Testers in Hardware
• Level 3 – Bounding Volume Hierarchy (BVH) Processing in Hardware
• Level 4 – BVH Processing with Coherency Sorting in Hardware
• Level 5 – Coherent BVH Processing with Scene Hierarchy Generator in Hardware

They claim that their solution is at level 4. At what level are the ray-tracing solutions from Nvidia and AMD? What level could Apple's solution reach?

Ray Tracing - Imagination

A revolutionary 3D graphics technology that mimics how light behaves in the real world to create visuals with astonishing realism.

www.imaginationtech.com

AMD is 2, Nvidia is probably 2 with elements of 4. Not quite sure what “BVH processing in hardware” means.

 

[diamond.g]

AMD is 2, Nvidia is probably 2 with elements of 4. Not quite sure what “BVH processing in hardware” means.

Maybe both Nvidia and AMD are level 3? AMDs patent on RT mentions walking a BVH tree for the ray/intersection testing.

TEXTURE PROCESSOR BASED RAY TRACING ACCELERATION METHOD AND SYSTEM

Complete Patent Searching Database and Patent Data Analytics Services.

www.freepatentsonline.com

 

[leman]

Maybe both Nvidia and AMD are level 3? AMDs patent on RT mentions walking a BVH tree for the ray/intersection testing.

TEXTURE PROCESSOR BASED RAY TRACING ACCELERATION METHOD AND SYSTEM

Complete Patent Searching Database and Patent Data Analytics Services.

www.freepatentsonline.com

Well, you can't use BVHs without walking the tree. This is why I don't understand what "BVH processing in hardware means". Walking the tree simply means following the data pointers. It's the most basic functionality of CPU/GPU hardware. Now, walking the tree in a GPU-friendly manner is an entirely different matter. That is tricky.

 

[diamond.g]

Well, you can't use BVHs without walking the tree. This is why I don't understand what "BVH processing in hardware means". Walking the tree simply means following the data pointers. It's the most basic functionality of CPU/GPU hardware. Now, walking the tree in a GPU-friendly manner is an entirely different matter. That is tricky.

Maybe they mean the acceleration structures?

 

[Xiao_Xi]

Not quite sure what “BVH processing in hardware” means.

Imagination explains the levels of ray tracing solutions in this white paper.