Discussion RDNA 5 / UDNA (CDNA Next) speculation

[adroc_thurston]

Is it even a shader core anymore when the µArch doesn't have any fixed function gfx silicon?

Yep, shader cores have been doing pretty dang generic IEEE FP math since times immemorial. That hasn't changed.

 

[soresu]

Yep, shader cores have been doing pretty dang generic IEEE FP math since times immemorial. That hasn't changed.

No, I mean how is it a shader when it isn't shading anything anymore?

 

[adroc_thurston]

No, I mean how is it a shader when it isn't shading anything anymore?

Shading in the current day and era means doing generic IEEE SPFP math, so yeah.
Fundamentally, you don't need fixed-function h/w to do graphics, but it's gonna be slow without some of it.

 

[soresu]

Shading in the current day and era means doing generic IEEE SPFP math, so yeah.

I can see that you lack experience outside of the IT industry specifically so I will rain on your parade.

Shading has always been a gfx term that applies generally across all graphics work, either drawn by hand or rasterised by computer.

That's why they called them shader cores or shaders in the first place.

 

[adroc_thurston]

Shading has always been a gfx term that applies generally across all graphics work, either drawn by hand or rasterised by computer.

That's why they called them shader cores or shaders in the first place.

Well no, because shading became a pile of IEEE SPFP math a while ago.
Like what does this make compute shader?

 

[Mopetar]

I'd say it's fundamentally been that way since unified shaders were introduced. Ever since then the GPU cores have become more generalized with graphics just being one of many workloads the cards can accelerate.

Modern games do a lot of things that previous generations of engines didn't because a GPU is a lot more flexible. Anything that needs a lot of floating point calculations (or even small integer ones these days) is going to run well on a GPU.