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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Rumor/Leak: Switch Hardware Specs, 1024 FLOP (Possibly 1TF) Device, Maxwell Architecture, Chat w/out Smartphone, Bluetooth Enabled...

fleischr said:
HoloDust said:

Not expert on subject, but few things to consider:

"To get an idea of what a difference in precision 16 bits can make, FP16 can represent 1024 values for each power of 2 between 2-14 and 215 (its exponent range). That’s 30,720 values. Contrast this to FP32, which can represent about 8 million values for each power of 2 between 2-126 and 2127. That’s about 2 billion values—a big difference."

https://devblogs.nvidia.com/parallelforall/mixed-precision-programming-cuda-8/ 

 

Current performance king in gaming GPUs, Titan X:

FP32: 10,157 GFLOPS

FP16: 159 GFLOPS

This is of course nVidia's way to prevent gaming cards being bought instead of Teslas for tasks that actually benefit from FP16...but just shows how little FP16 performance is important in games.

Honestly, not an expert on the subject, but last time I recall any talk about FP16 in gaming was some 15 or so years ago. Sure, mobiles have it, but degradation in quality seems to be quite noticeable.

Can you give an example? FunFan just gave one that seems to prove otherwise.

Sorry, what? Are we looking at the same picture? Because that image is Imagination Technologies showcase for their PowerVR GPUs that is showing superiority of FP32 over FP16 and degradation in image quality that latter produces. Just like this picture as well:

Anyway, FP16 has its place in mobile industry, but some people are having unrealistic expectations thinking that gains are 2x. IIRC, boosts from using FP16 code in real games are very modest, since most of the work is still done in FP32.

But as I said, I'm no expert on subject, best place for discussions like this is probably Beyond3D and there are threads out there dealing with this matter.



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HoloDust said:
fleischr said:

Can you give an example? FunFan just gave one that seems to prove otherwise.

Sorry, what? Are we looking at the same picture? Because that image is Imagination Technologies showcase for their PowerVR GPUs that is showing superiority of FP32 over FP16 and degradation in image quality that latter produces. Just like this picture as well:

Anyway, FP16 has its place in mobile industry, but some people are having unrealistic expectations thinking that gains are 2x. IIRC, boosts from using FP16 code in real games are very modest, since most of the work is still done in FP32.

But as I said, I'm no expert on subject, best place for discussions like this is probably Beyond3D and there are threads out there dealing with this matter.

Holodust is correct on this.

Shame the search function on this forum is cumbersome, I would find my old post. :P



--::{PC Gaming Master Race}::--

HoloDust said:
fleischr said:

Can you give an example? FunFan just gave one that seems to prove otherwise.

Sorry, what? Are we looking at the same picture? Because that image is Imagination Technologies showcase for their PowerVR GPUs that is showing superiority of FP32 over FP16 and degradation in image quality that latter produces. Just like this picture as well:

Anyway, FP16 has its place in mobile industry, but some people are having unrealistic expectations thinking that gains are 2x. IIRC, boosts from using FP16 code in real games are very modest, since most of the work is still done in FP32.

But as I said, I'm no expert on subject, best place for discussions like this is probably Beyond3D and there are threads out there dealing with this matter.

Are these the same number of flops for both images? As in say 1TF of in FP16 vs 1TF in FP32?

The fact it's listed simply as 'competing multicore GPU' and not anything else specfic comes across dubious.



I predict NX launches in 2017 - not 2016

BraLoD said:
Wyrdness said:

That's the port output not the console itself, for example older platforms like the PS2 technically had HD output but obviously the hardware would never reach that.

There are actually some HD games on the PS2.
Gran Turismo 4 was one of them.

No mate two people have already debunked this earlier, GT4 was not HD it used a trick to convert the game's output signal to support 1080i, the game itself is not HD in any way. Supporting a resolution doesn't mean it's rendered in that resolution otherwise you'd be saying that every Wii U game is 1080p because the console outputs that resolution.



BraLoD said:
Wyrdness said:

That's the port output not the console itself, for example older platforms like the PS2 technically had HD output but obviously the hardware would never reach that.

There are actually some HD games on the PS2.
Gran Turismo 4 was one of them.

I hope you don't genuinly believe that. 



"The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must" - Thoukydides

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BraLoD said:
Alkibiádēs said:

I hope you don't genuinly believe that. 

I don't need to "believe" that, the game was 1080i.
It might not be "true HD" like the not "true 4K" like nowdays, because of what wyrdness said, but it's still a PS2 game with HD display.

The game is not rendered in HD. The PS2 could barely handle 480p, let alone 720p or 1080p lol. 



"The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must" - Thoukydides

fleischr said:
HoloDust said:

Sorry, what? Are we looking at the same picture? Because that image is Imagination Technologies showcase for their PowerVR GPUs that is showing superiority of FP32 over FP16 and degradation in image quality that latter produces. Just like this picture as well:

Anyway, FP16 has its place in mobile industry, but some people are having unrealistic expectations thinking that gains are 2x. IIRC, boosts from using FP16 code in real games are very modest, since most of the work is still done in FP32.

But as I said, I'm no expert on subject, best place for discussions like this is probably Beyond3D and there are threads out there dealing with this matter.

Are these the same number of flops for both images? As in say 1TF of in FP16 vs 1TF in FP32?

The fact it's listed simply as 'competing multicore GPU' and not anything else specfic comes across dubious.

It's not the matter of flops, it's the matter of presicion. Again:

"To get an idea of what a difference in precision 16 bits can make, FP16 can represent 1024 values for each power of 2 between 2-14 and 215 (its exponent range). That’s 30,720 values. Contrast this to FP32, which can represent about 8 million values for each power of 2 between 2-126 and 2127. That’s about 2 billion values—a big difference."

https://devblogs.nvidia.com/parallelforall/mixed-precision-programming-cuda-8/

Of course, all those pictures are Imagination's marketing...probably worst case scenarios... there's a reason why FP16 can and is used on mobiles - small screens. But blow that up on TV and you have a different story. I can't find them now, but I remember pics of HL2 running in FP16 and FP32...lot of artefacts in FP16.

Again, not expert on the matter, not by a long shot, but my understanding is that FP16 is usefull in some very limited cases and that performance gains from mixed FP32/FP16 code are quite modest...at least in games.



I think I'll stick to Eurogamer.



BraLoD said:
Alkibiádēs said:

I hope you don't genuinly believe that. 

I don't need to "believe" that, the game was 1080i.
It might not be "true HD" like the not "true 4K" like nowdays, because of what wyrdness said, but it's still a PS2 game with HD display.

Digital Foundry peg GT4's native rendering resolution at 632x448, which is less than 480p, much less 1080i.

It's only "1080i" in the same sense that Halo 3 last gen was "1080p"; the console may have upscaled the outgoing signal as such, but the actual game was rendering internally at a far lower resolution.



HoloDust said:

It's not the matter of flops, it's the matter of presicion.

Stahp. You are taking my fun away with the technical reply. :P

BraLoD said:

I don't need to "believe" that, the game was 1080i.
It might not be "true HD" like the not "true 4K" like nowdays, because of what wyrdness said, but it's still a PS2 game with HD display.

It's not HD at all.
1080i is field rendered, it takes a 540P (Or similar) image and re-builds it into a 1080i signal.

As you know Progressive-scan is where all the lines are displayed at the sime time.
Interlaced only displays half the lines at any one time and alternates between the lines being shown.



--::{PC Gaming Master Race}::--