Rumour: Coreteks: AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) to launch in June

https://videocardz.com/newz/coreteks-amd-fidelityfx-super-resolution-fsr-to-launch-in-june

The sooner the better!


Exclusive: Intel’s DG2 for Mobile and Desktop – Xe enters the second phase



https://www.igorslab.de/en/exclusive-intels-dg2-for-mobile-and-desktop-xe-goes-into-its-second-phase/

I do want this to be a success so that we can have a third player in the GPU space but... We will see how it turns out


TSMCs water reservoirs between 11% and 23% of their capacity, and declining fast

https://www.counterpointresearch.com/taiwan-drought-may-worsen-global-component-shortage/

This goes to show why we need competition. If Nvidia also chose TSMC, the GPU supplies would be significantly worse than what it is today. Samsung continues to be the wiser decision made by Nvidia.

Apple vs Epic Day 3 update

Not looking good for Epic but also, Sony is now getting sued by a different company thanks to Epics case.

Alright, I am gonna do some predictions based on industry trends and rumours. Lets see how many I get wrong!

#1 - RDNA 3 will get a massive improvement in Ray Tracing

I think this is obvious but because of how many games are getting RT support already and if the rumour of Navi 31 being 160 CUs is true, the improvements might even be 2x faster in RT compared to RDNA 2.

#2 - Ray Tracing capable GPU will start being mandatory for AAA games starting 2023

We already know that 4A's new engine has no Raster fallback according to DF and that all future games using this engine will require a RT GPU as minimum and they won't be the only ones for AAA titles. I think that most companies are waiting until the cross gen period is over and the new consoles are readily available to purchase which I believe will be in 2023. Then you will have 40 million if not more consoles with RT capable GPUs as well as a large number of PC GPUs going back to a 2060. RT capable doesn't mean it needs to be great at RT, just that it can do hardware RT.

#3 - Zen 4 will Roflstomp Alder Lake S and Raptor Lake in Desktop and Datacenter

While we do have a new Ceo that has a lot of promise, engineering takes time. I think 10nm will overall be a flop based on the rumours we have seen and how meh Tiger Lake is while Intel tries to fast track their 7nm.

#4 - Super Resolution will either be a bandage or delayed until RDNA 3

While Super Resolution will help RDNA 2 GPUs greatly, I don't think it will be much different than the TAA Upscaling/checkboard options we have today. The main benefit will be that it will be easier to implement as right now, every game engine has a different up-scaling solution while Super Resolution will be a single solution across multiple game engines and platforms. I think the true competitor to DLSS will be coming with RDNA 3.

#5 - Lovelace will beat the initial launch of RDNA 3 GPUs but AMD will save the zomg version of RDNA 3 until Lovelace launches

If Lovelace is delayed for months and RDNA 3 is going to release in Q1/Q2 in 2022, then it makes zero sense for Nvidia to release a product that's slower than RDNA 3. But knowing this, AMD won't release their top their GPU in the initial launch either. I think they will release a GPU that's 30% faster than Ampere in Q1/Q2 and then release their true top of the line GPU when Nvidia launches Lovelace.

Yeah, they (the modders) deserve full credit and payment for their hard work. Would be cheaper for CDPR to use that, and save a bunch of time and effort than hiring artists for the job. Also would give the developers of mods some recognition and might open up opportunities for them. Win win situation tbh.

Consoles since their inception, have always been designed around the company and it's own ecosystem, so opening that up allows others to implant their own ecosystems into those other consoles. If say for example, Sony doesn't do a good enough job being able to make money back from the consoles, and cannot make good enough offerings within their own ecosystem, while all the other publishers offer multiple deals and exclusives at the same time, within Sony's ecosystem, then Sony stands less of a chance within their very own hw and ecosystem, to make money back (they would end up relying on people paying to play online and 1st party, as 3rd party deals wouldn't make sense anymore for 3rd party pubs to do, since they can set up their own stores internally).

Timmy really, and I mean really doesn't know just what he's about to do. He has no idea what this could do to the industry at large, because as far as things are going now for some of the big publishers, it's no longer about being the middle man anymore, and Timmy doesn't want to be that middle man anymore (hence his fight to put his store on every system, his engine for every game, his network for every game/ecosystem). It's fine when you have multiple storefronts on PC, because MS chooses to allow for it (not like they have much choice, because they would be taken to court if they tried tor restrict software), but with consoles it's a whole different story.

The judge isn't entirely in the know of the differences between consoles and PC, and so far they are seeing both as being the same thing, meaning if the the judge allows Epic to win, then they will enforce the consoles to open up, which could lead to dire consequences for some companies involved (Epic could even lose some partnerships as a result of this, and Sony is likely not pleased with what's transpired already).

You have to also remember that some companies just want to keep their ecosystems walled, and while I personally am not a fan of that, I also know it's their to control and command. I don't really like Apple, but having a third party come in, rule and dictate what they should do is really no better, because when that happens, what's to stop them from doing the same thing? (Epic has already been cited for hypocrisy multiple times so far before and during this court case, so it's already proving the point made).

I had a feeling they would phone in with Halk. That guy has been doing a ton of work for CDPR for years now, and it's remained consistent with the game's art style. Having him work with them and providing the retouched assets would provide a far quicker work flow with CDPR and allow Halk to possibly find a job within the company. I hope they hire him after this, because I really do think the guy puts in a lot of effort, especially for the past 6 years.

That seems to be too soon to be true. Maybe they'll reveal how it will work, how they'll implement it and give us some examples to show how great (according to them) it works.

#1 - RDNA3 needs to bring a big improvement in RT performance, because the first iteration has been a bit meh (roughly on par with Nvidia's first iteration, but too far from Ampere to be able to compete). The extra 2x RT cores that will come from the extra CUs will surely improve the end performance, but they also need to improve the performance of the RT cores themselves. I hope they'll be able to do it, but the result may still end behind Nvidia's next GPUs.

#2 - There will always be devs that try to push boundaries and use that as a selling point, but imho 2023 is too early for that to be mainstream. That said, some studios may try the approach of 4Games: launch a "regular" game with RT elements and later on launch an updated RT-only version.

#3 - Too soon to tell. We barely have any benchmark regarding Intel's new chips, and we have nothing regarding Zen4. The only thing we can guess from now is that AMD will still be the more energy efficient solution.

The other have too many variables to make any opinion on them.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake will most likely come to PC in 2022, Playstation exclusivity extended

https://www.dsogaming.com/news/final-fantasy-7-remake-will-most-likely-come-to-pc-in-2022-playstation-exclusivity-extended/



The fact that we have this nonsense in 2021 annoys me to no end. I bought the game on ps4 and I will get the DLC on ps5 as well but come on. Give it to me on PC already... Urghh SE and Sony just Urghh

Yea as long as RDNA 3 can close the gap, I think it will be good enough for most people. As long as they don't have another situation where a 3070 is able to compete with a 6900XT in very demanding RT games, it will be fine. If RDNA 3 is 10-15% behind Nvidia, then that's close enough for the majority of people. Especially as Super Resolution should be out by then.

The problem is that we don't know how big of an improvement will Lovelace be to Ampere in RT so, even if AMD manages to double or triple its performance, things could end in the same awkward situation.

I think (and I know that it's easy to say something like this for someone that doesn't know shit), that they should double thei RT hardware per CU. With RDNA2 they have 1 RT core per CU, and that has proved to not be enough. They should increase that to 2 RT cores per CU, plus the extra CUs from the new chiplet design. Pack in the extra refinements and improvement that come from a second iteration, and then we would be onto something.

Yea it's also quite hard to tell where the bottleneck is for AMD. The main difference at a high level between Nvidia and AMD's implementation is that Nvidia's RT cores does both Intersections and BVH traversal where as RDNA 2's Ray Accelerators only does Intersections and leaves the BVH traversal to the CUs. Now the main benefit with leaving it up to the CUs is that on consoles, developers can fine tune it but on PC as both Direct X Ray Tracing and Vulkan Ray Tracing doesn't allow such fine tuning as of yet, there doesn't seem to be any benefit. But no one actually knows what benefit it would even have even if the PC Apis would allow it since even on consoles, you have ps5/series X which are similar to 2070 Super and 2080 performance in Raster but in heavy RT games, they are more like 2060 Super even though consoles have low level advantages.

But regardless of which, I think the next jump for PC hardware is gonna be one fap worthy jump. Lets just hope that the price doesn't increase by much and the miners/scalpers won't interfere to this extent.