Patent shows AMD working on hybrid hardware and software solution for RayTracing

A patent shows that AMD has been working on a hybrid solution for RayTracing that combines dedicated hardware with specific software.

RayTracing technology has been widely criticized for being implemented by NVIDIA. Such technology has been implemented ahead of time by NVIDIAIt is true, but it has forced the industry to think about it. The number of games that implement technology developed by NVIDIA and Microsoft is increasing. AMD initially deviated from this technology. They stressed that it was very green and that they would only implement it if it could be integrated into low-end graphics.

Well, it seems that AMD was publicly saying one thing and secretly developing a RayTracing solution. This is demonstrated by a patent filed on June 27 at the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The company is working on a combined hardware and software based RayTracing solution.

AMD files a patent application for a RayTracing technology

The company has highlighted that the software solutions "are energy intensive and difficult to scale to higher performance levels without spending a significant matrix area." They have also highlighted that RayTracing through software "can reduce performance substantially over what it is theoretically". This is because "they suffer drastically from the divergence in the execution of the displacement of the hierarchy of bounded volumes"

Using RayTracing software on non-optimized hardware requires a significant performance sacrifice. Blocking hardware for software is something that nobody likes and less for a relatively useful technology. The problem is the inability to handle two processing tasks at the same time.

AMD also doesn't think hardware RayTracing is the answer. "They lack the inflexibility of the programmer, as the RayTracing channel is set to a certain hardware configuration." They emphasize that "in general it is quite inefficient in this area, since they must maintain large buffers of lightning data to reorder memory transactions to achieve maximum performance"

Combined solution for RayTracing

For this they have developed a hybrid solution. The described solution combines dedicated hardware and existing Shaders Processors combined with software to implement RayTracing. It supposedly removes the above limitations.

Although the patent is marked yesterday, the application was submitted a year and a half ago, time in which they would have developed this technology. It seems that they are looking for a difference from the NVIDIA solution, with the RT Cores implemented in the Turing.

Source: TH