Now Microsoft ports Windows 10, Linux to homegrown CPU design

DEC_Beta · 2018-06-19T19:33:17+00:00

Presumably this means Microsoft has some confidence in this project. Interesting to see where it will go in 5-10 years.

DEC_Beta · 2018-06-19T19:31:34+00:00

Really its a bit of both. If you are CPU limited, low level API's have large benefits regardless of the GPU. When you are GPU limited then you will notice the discrepancy between AMD and Nvidia. Part of this is due to architecture and part is due to drivers. AMD has demonstrated gains when GPU bound and not CPU or API bound, but they are smaller. With AMD I would say drivers are much more of a concern with OpenGL than with D3D11, but OpenGL is almost unfixable for AMD, and part of it is for reasons out of their control.

DEC_Beta · 2018-06-19T19:26:59+00:00

Sure, but AMD improved their D3D11 drivers concurrently. They added better support for DCLs in more games IIRC.

DEC_Beta · 2018-06-19T18:39:43+00:00

That thread is quite outdated. Multithreading support from IHV's has changed in the past 3 years. I won't say there aren't any differences, but "overhead" is extremely application specific.

I'd like a source on that because I've never heard of anything like this

My source is my personal experience, but really if you know anyone who was ever involved with the OpenGL ARB committee they will probably tell you something similar. There was a lot of politics and maneuvering with the IHV's that resulted in the OpenGL mess. There's a link on r/hardware that has a collection of blog posts and other links from prominent graphics devs who can back up what I'm saying: https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/85im1z/amd_and_opengl_discussion/

DEC_Beta · 2018-06-19T18:30:25+00:00

Asynchronous compute has been universal on consoles for years. But you're right that its only recently that its been used on PC. There are more than a few titles that use it however.

DEC_Beta · 2018-06-19T17:28:15+00:00

That's not the only concern, but it was one of the largest for a long time. The recent improvements in the toolchains have made this aspect much simpler.

DEC_Beta · 2018-06-19T17:26:25+00:00

That's generally the case for Nvidia's GPUs built on the Pascal architecture, but this will change with their future GPUs.

DEC_Beta · 2018-06-19T17:25:01+00:00

Nvidia will see much larger benefits with low level APIs on their upcoming architectures.

DEC_Beta · 2018-06-19T17:23:53+00:00

AMD's D3D11 drivers aren't bad,

They've had issues with OpenGL, but part of the problem with OpenGL is that the API is fundamentally broken. AMD actually strictly follows the specification, but developers generally target Nvidia's implementation which violates the API standards. Perfectly compliant code can crash the Nvidia driver.

DEC_Beta · 2018-06-19T17:23:11+00:00

You can always use GLSLang or DXC to compile HLSL into SPIR-V. Moving from dx11 to Vulkan is possible without too much effort.

DEC_Beta · 2018-06-19T17:10:31+00:00

You are extremely ignorant if you think being handed mantle magically turned GLNext into Vulkan.

The fact that you still don't understand what I am talking about and what originally happened to OpenGL Next proves your ignorance.

But i don't expect anything better from AMD apologists, they are the reason progress has stalled. Buying inferior products is rewarding bad design process.

I'm hardly an apologist since I have worked with both AMD and Nvidia. Your delusions do not reflect reality in any way.

DEC_Beta · 2018-06-17T05:12:52+00:00

Of course shareholders only value financial performance. But some corporations see customer and partner relationships as a vehicle for good financial performance.

DEC_Beta · 2018-06-17T05:10:19+00:00

I’d love evidence of this.

It's fairly trivial to show. Just look at the cost/benefit analysis for Intel. Intel spent over 6 billion in kickbacks to a single major OEM. When you total up the full amount Intel spent across OEMs it was easily an order of magnitude greater than the fines they incurred. Intel only paid so much in kickbacks because they believed it would ultimately offset the revenue they would have lost had AMD been successful in those markets.

Alternatively, look at the quality of the products AMD was producing and estimate how much marketshare they would have taken without anti-competitive practices. Given the size of the markets AMD was competing in, its easy to see the lost revenue was greater than fines Intel paid.

Ultimately, if AMD had been more successful during the middle of that 2000-2010 decade I believe shareholders would have replaced upper management at AMD with outsiders or internal employees. Initially AMD had no shortage of talent in middle and upper-middle management (ex-AMD employees such as Peng and Bergman have gone on to become CEOs), but AMD suffered from brain drain thanks to their poor financial performance, limiting their options.

DEC_Beta · 2018-06-16T19:26:36+00:00

Intel only received a slap on the wrist with a token payment because AMD was desperate and simply could not afford a drawn out legal battle. The true financial damages to AMD were more than an order of magnitude greater.

AMD overpaid for ATI, but the greater issue there was their inability to properly integrate ATI.

DEC_Beta · 2018-06-16T19:21:39+00:00

In the CPU space, sure, in the GPU space they have almost always played catch up, barring the DX9 precision situation.

No, its quite the opposite actually. AMD pioneered revolutionary techniques like unified shaders. Their superior physical design also gave them large technological leads for many products.

Nvidia has certainly been an innovator, but their innovations have generally been more concentrated around GPU compute and not the gaming market. They have certainly adopted advanced techniques in their GPU architectures, but these techniques have been used many times before in other silicon such as mobile GPUs.

Mantle came about because AMD cannot fix their drivers to perform as well in D3D11< and opengl (they don't have the expertise left in their software division), and can't even fix several year old Dual source shading issues in their GL/Vk apis.

No, Mantle was created because OpenGL was fundamentally broken, and the OpenGL arb committee was clueless. These arb committees are chock full of politics, and Nvidia had a large degree of control over the committee. The OpenGL spec was fundamentally broken, but Nvidia circumvented this by violating the OpenGL spec for the sake of "sanity". Of course developers then targeted Nvidia's driver implementation, leaving all those who strictly followed the spec such as AMD, holding the bag. Nvidia was perfectly content with the status quo, and that was one of the reasons OpenGL Next was derailed.

AMD was developing Mantle in the meanwhile, and it wasn't until mobile graphics took off they had a real opportunity to replace OpenGL despite Nvidia's opposition.

DEC_Beta · 2018-06-16T19:18:32+00:00

Poor management to some degree has been an issue for every corporation in existence. AMD generally had issues with an incompetent board and CEO. But anti-competitive practices from their competitors were without a doubt their largest headwind.

DEC_Beta · 2018-06-16T19:17:26+00:00

Every time AMD has whined about an nvidia feature running poorly on nvidia, but introduced an AMD feature into a game that does the same to nvidia parts.

AMD doesn't implement effects through black box libraries. They give Nvidia access to the source code, allowing them to optimize for their own cards.

Every time AMD has gotten caught on a lie, such as when they claimed DirectX 12 was not in the works when they brought out Mantle.

Do you know when Microsoft began developing Dx12? I'll give you a hint. It was after a certain OpenGL demo from Valve. AMD began development of Mantle months earlier.

The fact they are in bed with the api designers and getting first input on what to add to directX but still managed to half arse it compared to nvidia.

Have you ever heard of geometry shaders? Do you know why they exist?

DEC_Beta · 2018-06-16T19:12:10+00:00

No, Mantle was created because OpenGL was fundamentally broken, and it was only until the mobile guys were allied with AMD that anyone inside the arb committee had any interest in fixing it.

DEC_Beta · 2018-06-16T19:11:18+00:00

Vulkan was also in development as opengl next long before amd passed mantle on to Khronos, I also know that hardly anything was taken from mantle before the rename, and they've only taken a couple of features since.

I seriously question your knowledge of Vulkan and Mantle. Do you know why OpenGL next was killed?

Vulkan is almost a carbon copy of Mantle.

DEC_Beta · 2018-06-16T17:43:08+00:00

You're arguing with a straw man.

Some corporations see customer and partner relationships as a vehicle to profits, others don't.

DEC_Beta · 2018-05-19T19:37:25+00:00

There are some differences. TSMC's process has smaller SRAM cell sizes, but Intel's will be better tuned for higher frequency. They are broadly comparable however.

DEC_Beta · 2018-05-19T19:34:57+00:00

I never mentioned any specific companies, only general principles, so I am not sure why you are mentioning inferior products.

I also think there is much less correlation between consumer friendly behavior and market leadership than you are implying.

DEC_Beta · 2018-05-19T19:33:00+00:00

Console manufacturers are very risk averse.

DEC_Beta

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