Imagination mulls adding DirectX to its GPU roadmap amid customer interest

Imagination Technologies says supporting DirectX is becoming a bigger consideration for the company when it comes to designing GPUs. "We've definitely been speaking to a lot of customers around DirectX; it's something that, looking forward, for sure [is] for the roadmap. Obviously it's a big investment, and something that our …

[Pascal Monett]

"generate photorealistic renders of a car in real time on the dashboard"

You're in a car. Mount a camera and take a damn picture.

Stop trying to turn in a car into a gaming platform (with telemetry).

[Jimmy2Cows]

Re: "generate photorealistic renders of a car in real time on the dashboard"

Glad I'm not the only one to think "What the absolute fuck are they on about?".

Efficiently processing LIDAR returns for near-as-possible real time understanding of what's around the vehicle, for things like collision avoidance? Sure, sounds like it's possibly a viable use case, if this tech is more efficient than existing LIDAR processing systems. Except the return is just half of ray tracing. The LIDAR unit is firing the rays, not the GPU. So actually I'm not sure how this would fit in.

Generating photorealistic renders of a car in real time on the dashboard? Why? This just has no place in an actual car. Sounds like poorly thought out marketing fluff, attempting to make a link to automotive implementations that don't actually exist.

[Timbo]

eh?

"as Imagination tries to break through into the PC market with more capable GPUs"

As I recall, in the past, the "branding" of Imagination PC products was through it's VideoLogic brand and the PowerVR chipsets, which back in the early 2000s, were exceedingly good products to fit into a gaming PC. Then VideoLogic ceased selling products for the PC, changed their name to PURE Digital and designed and marketed DAB radios, until the PURE brand became a separate company and was sold off.

Back in the olden days there were lots of different designs of GPU chipsets available (such as Hercules, Matrox, 3dfx, VIa S3, Tseng Labs), from many brand names, before many firms went bust, were bought out or switched their design teams to other types of devices and left us with NVidia and AMD (formerly ATI).

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: eh?

Exactly, i wondered about the break into, they are thinking of re-entering. These chipsets until recently (couple of years) were still called PowerVR.

These chipsets are also what iPhone and M1 graphics and NN accelerators are based upon.

[DarkwavePunk]

To think...

...it was only the early 90s and rendering a refractive ball with multiple light sources on a chequerboard in 320x200 resolution using an Atari ST could take a day or more of work in PovRay. To think that real-time raytracing (even with some cheats) is possible blows my (albeit tiny) mind.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: To think...

What will blow your mind even more is realising that was actually 30 years ago, I think the same and then realise, god, it was 30 years ago.