Radeon Technologies Group

[Jorge-Vieira]

Yap, significa portanto que não vale a pena mudar de monitor
Aguardamos as sabias explicaçoes do Sonas

[Jorge-Vieira]

AMD Talks Next Generation Coherent Interconnect Fabric Connecting Polaris GPUs, Zen CPUs and HPC APUs

~AMD has long been known to be developing their own coherent interconnect fabric that will be integrated a wide spectrum of products that are aimed at the server and HPC markets. Talking to PCWatch, AMD’s SVP of Radeon Technologies Group, Raja Koduri, said that their company is developing a new coherent interconnect fabric that will offer both, ultra-wideband and low latency, connecting GPUs, CPUs and APUs developed by AMD.

AMD Developing Ultra-Wideband, Low Latency Coherent Interconnect Fabric To Rival NVIDIA’s NVLINK

Since the creation of RTG (Radeon Technologies Group), Raja Koduri has put a lot of focus back to GPUs. In 2012, AMD’s strategy was quite different to what it is today. The company focused on their APU (accelerated processing units) and SOC (System-on-chip) designs however that didn’t work well for the company. The GPU department on the other hand has been a main driving force behind for them and that’s where both AMD and RTG is specifically eyeing at after the restructuring of the company in September 2015.
According to Raja, there’s a constant rise in compute demand for the high-end PC market. Specifically speaking about compute performance where the GPU clearly shines against modern CPUs, there’s just constant demand for greater computing needs in the high-performance computing sector which consists of HPC, Servers and the Workstation machines. To feed that demand, AMD is coming back with a big bang in the GPU department with their Polaris GPU architecture but their aim doesn’t stop at GPUs alone.
Even with rumors going on around that discrete GPUs won’t stay in the market in the long term, the statement is simply dismissed by Raja who further says that the market for dGPU will always be on the rise as compute demand will never decrease. Raja explains that the market has two kinds of users, those who don’t demand the compute performance are the casual and entry level audience who either buy low-end PCs or smartphones and high-end users who eye better performance and compute. The high-end sector consists of users more than just gamers and like stated, the HPC, Server and Workstation market is also part of this sector who keep on demand for better compute and performance.

Both AMD and NVIDIA face a similar problem in the high-end sector which is to feed the high compute demand of their customers. According to AMD, not even their Radeon R9 Fury (Fiji based) graphics cards are powerful enough alone to meet those demands but by offering more scalability and stability, allowing multiple GPUs to run in parallel to one another to solve a problem, the necessary performance could be achieved.
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In a perfect situation, all GPUs inside a workstation can be made to act as a single resource that aims to solve a specific set of problems. Currently, AMD only provides a software based multi-GPU framework added in their recent Boltzmann Initiative but moving forward, AMD knows that an update to their multi-GPU solution, also known as CrossFire, is needed to provide a hardware based multi-GPU solution that aims to deliver a robust scaling across AMD’s GPUs. For this matter, they are developing their own open Interconnect fabric that will not only allow AMD GPUs to run in tandem with one another but also allow third-party solutions (GPUs, FPGAs).
AMD’s Coherent Fabric To Clock in 100 GB/s Interconnect Speeds – Open Nature Design

PCI-Express is already seen as a bottleneck when connecting several nodes in high-performance sectors. AMD sees their current PCI-e and CrossFire solutions not working with next generation machines hence they have to design a new coherent fabric. The interconnect will offer speeds of 100 GB/s across multiple GPUs and APUs that are featured inside AMD powered compute machines and will deploy some open standards. Asking if the interconnect will also maintain memory coherency and sharing between the GPUs and CPUs, Raja stated that he can’t reveal that right now but will definitely have a detailed showcase of their coherent fabric later on as coherency between their several chip designs is being kept in mind.
















Comparing to NVIDIA’s NVLINK which is going to have interconnect speeds of up to 200 GB/s, the AMD solution does have a slight advantage as it works across x86 processors as well while NVIDIA’s NVLINK works across the NVIDIA based GPUs and IBM’s Power CPUs. NVIDIA is already deploying NVLINK in two next generation super computer so it will be interesting to see AMD’s own solution going in action to power some high-end spectrum devices.
AMD’s Latest Packaging and Integration To Help Development of HPC APUs

The letter “P” is very dear to Raja as it means four key components for RTG while designing next gen GPUs. The four “Ps” include Performance, Power, Price and last but not least Packaging. AMD is the firs graphics vendor to ship an HBM powered graphics card and they have got some experience from it in the packaging department. Tight integration of the GPU and HBM silicon on the same substrate (interposer) leads to some crucial learning that helps designing next generation solutions for compute hungry audiences.

For some time, we have been hearing about HPC APUs which are simply put, high-end APUs that will come with a fast discrete graphics chip, several next-gen x86 cores and tons of HBM memory, all integrated on a package and all chips linked via the fast interconnect which has been talked about in this article. We have previously reported on extensive details regarding the High-Performance Computing APU and Exascale Heterogeneous Processors from AMD. If all goes well, we will see an update in this regards when the Zen processors hit the market which is probably due for release at the end of this year.

Noticia:
http://wccftech.com/amd-coherent-interconnect-fabric-gpus-cpus-apus/#ixzz3xR2EP7D3


Tem sido notável a transformação que o Radeon Group teve depois de se ter formado, esta nova estrategia de comunicação e divulgação de tecnologias vai começar a dar frutos muito em breve.

[Jorge-Vieira]

AMD : Future GPUs Will Be Named After Stars And Galaxies – Company Bids Farewell To Island Code Names

AMD’s Raja Koduri, head of Radeon Technologies Group, revealed that the company will be naming its future GPU architectures after stars, star systems and galaxies. The company’s head of the newly founded Radeon Technologies Group explained that the team is heading towards a new direction with a fresh look on all things graphics and there was a need to reflect this change of winds.

AMD Radeon Technologies Group Bids A Somber Farewell To Island Code Names To Begins Its “Journey Into Space”

One of the more notable changes that Raja talked about was giving each new graphics architecture a unifying code name, something which the company hasn’t been doing for the past several years, not in any official capacity at least. Raja explained that this change will make things easier for everyone internally and externally and that future GPU architectures will take on astrological code names, underlining the beginning of Radeon Technologies Group’s new “journey into space”.

Raja Koduri, Senior Vice President and Chief Architect, Radeon Technologies Group, speaking with Venturebeat.com :
We have some exciting hardware announcements as well. This is designed for FinFET. Our guiding principle for the Polaris architecture was power efficiency. We have the new naming scheme for our architectures. It’ll be based on galaxies, star systems, and stars. You’ll see more of this coming in the future. Polaris is the beginning of our journey through space.
VB: Does the Polaris brand supplant the Radeon brand?
Koduri: It’s an architecture codename. It’ll still be Radeon something something on the box. But we didn’t have a consistent architecture name like our competitors do. It was hard, because for people, including yourselves and some of the press and enthusiasts—This family of chips has this architecture and a similar class of features. You can group them easily together.
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[Exclusive] AMD’s Greenland Has Been Known As “Vega10” Internally For Sometime

Vega is the brightest star in the Lyra constellation and the second brightest star in the northern hemisphere. Vega along with Arcturus and Sirius, is one of the most luminous stars close to our earth’s own sun. Vega has been extensively studied by astronomers and as such was described as “arguably the next most important star in the sky after the Sun”. Furthermore, it was the northern pole star around 12,000 BCE.
Vega was the first star other than the Sun to be photographed and the first to have its spectrum recorded. But perhaps the most significant fact of all about Vega is that it served as the baseline for calibrating the photometric brightness scale, and was one of the stars used to define the mean values for the UBV photometric system.
This short backstory explains why Vega is such an important codename for AMD and why the company has decided to give it to its highly anticipated next generation GPU, formerly known as Greenland of the Arctic Islands family. All of this plays into AMD’s brand new strategy of powering better “brighter pixels”.
It’s important to note that the “Polaris” code name is a relatively new one and it was given to a GPU architecture that had already been code named Arctic Islands according to our sources. The decision to rename it was one made by the Radeon Technologies Group to underline just how important and different this new 14nm FinFET based “Polaris” architecture is to AMD.
So far AMD has unveiled two 14nm FinFET Polaris GPUs, given the names Polaris 11 and Polaris 10. We’re not yet sure if any of these two is “Greenland” or “Vega 10”. However we know that one is very small, estimated to be around the same size as AMD’s Cape Verde which is 123mm² large. The goal for this chip was to deliver console-class gaming performance in thin and light notebooks. While the other is a large GPU, described as a successor to the Radeon R9 Fury X.
Polaris graphics cards are set to launch next summer, before the back to school season, on both desktops and gaming notebooks.

Noticia:
http://wccftech.com/amd-future-gpus-named-stars-galaxies-company-bids-farewell-island-code-names/#ixzz3xgDjEzrK



Só pode ser influencia do novo filme do Star Wars

[Enzo]

Vês? Já tinha alertado para isso

[Jorge-Vieira]

Polaris GPU series is AMD’s beginning of “journey into space”

Brighter stars, galaxy systems in future GPU codenames
Over the past few years, Radeon Technologies Group (RTG) has treaded many uncharted waters near and far to gather enough "island" codenames for over five generations of graphics processing units. According to Raja Koduri, Senior Vice President and Chief Architect of the Radeon Technologies Group, all of that is about to change.

Starting in 2016, the company will travel a new, much brighter and expansive exploratory naming landscape, and future AMD GPU architectures will now be given astronomical code names after stars and constellations (and, hopefully, astronomical performance as a byproduct).
The company has been using “island” codenames ever since its TeraScale family series of microarchitectures. This was AMD’s second GPU architecture series using a unified shader model and competed with Nvidia’s Tesla and first-generation Fermi lineups. The first AMD GPU lineup in the TeraScale 3 family was “Northern Islands,” or the 40nm Radeon HD 6000 Series, which launched in October 2010.
Following the move from TeraScale came the company’s current Graphics Core Next (GCN) compute architecture. AMD continued with its naming scheme here for the first GCN 1.0 family called “Southern Islands,” or the 28nm Radeon HD 7000 Series, which first launched in December 2011. The list goes on with the GCN 1.1 family mostly called “Sea Islands,” with the Radeon HD 8000 Series (January 2013) and Rx 200 Series (October 2013). Next is the third-generation GCN 1.2 family called “Volcanic Islands” and “Caribbean Islands,” or the Rx 300 Series, which launched in June 2015.
AMD promises that its upcoming fourth-generation GCN 2.0 family will be the last of its dealing with volcanic land masses and the beginning of its foray into stars. The next family was formerly called “Arctic Islands,” but has recently been renamed “Polaris” after the North Star, the brightest star in the constellation Ursa Minor and the 50th brightest star in the night sky.
Speaking with VentureBeat on Friday, Raja Koduri had the following to say:

"Our guiding principle for the Polaris architecture was power efficiency. We have the new naming scheme for our architectures. It’ll be based on galaxies, star systems, and stars. You’ll see more of this coming in the future. Polaris is the beginning of our journey through space."

The company did, however, give us a small hint at its upcoming “journey into space” project with the Radeon Mobility HD 8000 Series back in 2013, codenamed “Solar System” (see: “Sun” Pro/XT/XTX, “Mars” XT/XTX/LP/Pro, “Venus” LE/Pro/XT/XTX, “Saturn” Pro/XT and “Neptune” XT/XTX).



SciTechDaily.com - Vega in the night sky
WCCFTech is claiming that AMD’s 14nm FinFET-based “Greenland” enthusiast flagship chip – the successor to 28nm Fiji – has been internally known by the company for quite some time as “Vega10.” According to scientific observation data, Vega is the brightest star in the constellation Lyra and is the fifth brightest star in the night sky. The star is so valuable to astronomers that it has frequently served as the baseline for calibrating the photometric brightness scale (the intensity of a space object’s electromagnetic radiation). Vega was also the northern pole star around 12,000 BC and was the first star other than the Sun to be photographed and have its spectrum recorded.
Raja also explained that the company has two versions of its new 14nm FinFET GPUs ready to launch by the middle of 2016.



Source: AMD

“Both are extremely power efficient. This is Polaris 10 and that’s Polaris 11. In terms of what we’ve done at the high level, it’s our most revolutionary jump in performance so far. We’ve redesigned many blocks in our cores. We’ve redesigned the main processor, a new geometry processor, a completely new fourth-generation Graphics Core Next with a very high increase in performance. We have new multimedia cores, a new display engine.”

AMD’s Polaris family officially marks the beginning of the company’s journey into the great vastness of space. As Andy Weir, author of The Martian says, “Astronauts are inherently insane. And really noble.” Perhaps the same can be said for ambitious GPU architects in the next couple years to come.

Noticia:
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/graphic...ney-into-space


Cá fica mais um pouco da história sobre o nome da nova arquitetura.
Gosto muito desta nova abordagem do Radeon Group em abrir as coisas aos entusiastas e seguidores deste meio.

[Enzo]

Chama-se "manter a malta entretida com letras enquanto o resto não vem"

[Jorge-Vieira]

Eu acho que temos de aplaudir esta nova forma de comunicação, equanto era a AMD apenas, tudo era fechado, nada se sabia.
Este Radeon Group faz-me lembrar a ATI.

[Enzo]

Acho que é precisamente esse o espírito que eles querem mostrar. Alguém andou a fazer bem o trabalho de casa.

[Jorge-Vieira]

AMD Launches GPUOpen – Refines Philosophy Into Two Tiers: CGI and Gaming and Professional Compute

AMD has finally launched one of the biggest open source initiatives that it promised earlier in the form of GPUOpen. Building on one of its fundamental promises (open source), AMD’s GPUOpen promises to create the ultimate platform for game and graphic developers that will give them easy access to everything from dev kits to effect libraries. To quote Nicolas Thibieroz, one of the leading guys behind the GPUOpen project, GPUOpen “marks the beginning of a new philosophy at AMD” and is something whose roots can be traced back to Mantle.

The introductory image present on the site details the GPUOpen initiative. @AMD

AMD launches the GPUOpen initiative – marks the beginning of a new and open philosophy

GPUOpen was detailed by AMD when it was launched some while ago, but the new website, which can be found here, details the concept a bit further. The initiative is divided into two broad categories: one for CGI and Games and the other for professional compute. All of these things are driven by a multitude of initiatives combined together into a cohesive whole and will feature names that many of our readers will be familiar with: Liquid VR and so on. They also feature many names that our readers might not be familiar with, such as the new HIP tool. All this is one of many initiatives by the RTG this year and part of the revival of the raw enthusiasm that has been sadly missing from the Industry players these past few years. Although after the release of Mantle API things have been taking a decidedly upwards turn – and the culmination of the ideology that catalysed Mantle is GPUOpen.

GPUOpen – CGI and Gaming

The Gaming and CGI side of things includes the AO FX, Geometry FX, Shadow FX and Tress FX libraries which are all DirectX based open source assets for developers. Liquid VR – a very well known name in AMD SDKs is also included amongst other libraries like the AGS library. This initiative originally started as something to counter Nvidia’s GameWorks series of libraries – which are proprietary in nature and a black-box in terms of coding. Since then, it has now evolved into something much more than its original idea – a complete definition of the ideology that AMD hopes to represent – the Open future.

GPUOpen – Professional Compute

HIP or Heterogeneous-compute Interface for Portability is a new tool which will convert any CUDA code to common C++ allowing it to be run through CUDA NVCC or AMD HCC compilers. Part of the GPUOpen platform this is basically a step forward in unwrapping the exclusivity the CUDA ecosystem enjoys. Ofcourse the professional compute side of things contains much more than just libraries – the GCN 3 ISA for eg has now extensive documentation as well for the ease of developers. And of course, no talk about AMD’s open source professional ecosystem would be complete without the HSA runtime – which is something that is budding in to one of the industry’s strongest platforms of the future. Given below is the official press release:
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Today is the day we launch GPUOpen.

GPUOpen is composed of two areas: Games & CGI for game graphics and content creation (which is the area I am involved with), and Professional Compute for high-performance GPU computing in professional applications.
GPUOpen is based on three principles:

1. The first is to provide code and documentation allowing PC developers to exert more control on the GPU. Current and upcoming GCN architectures (such as Polaris) include many features not exposed today in PC graphics APIs, and GPUOpen aims to empower developers with ways to leverage some of those features. In addition to generating quality or performance advantages such access will also enable easier porting from current-generation consoles (XBox One™ and PlayStation 4) to the PC platform.
2. The second is a commitment to open source software. The game and graphics development community is an active hub of enthusiastic individuals who believe in the value of sharing knowledge. Full and flexible access to the source of tools, libraries and effects is a key pillar of the GPUOpen philosophy. Only through open source access are developers able to modify, optimize, fix, port and learn from software. The goal? Encouraging innovation and the development of amazing graphics techniques and optimizations in PC games.
3. The third is a collaborative engagement with the developer community. GPUOpen software is hosted on public source code repositories such as GitHub as a way to enable sharing and collaboration. Engineers from different functions will also regularly write blog posts about various GPU-related topics, game technologies or industry news.

By Developers, For Developers

A critical design goal was to have GPUOpen created by developers, for developers, keeping marketing elements to a minimum. The creation of the Radeon Technology Group led by Raja Koduri was key in turning GPUOpen into a reality and I am very excited that this project is now being launched.
Today is the birth of GPUOpen and like any newborn it has some growing to do. As we add new content over the next few months we will be listening to developers feedback and respond as needed.
It’s time to open up the GPU.

->Abrir Spoiler<-

Noticia:
http://wccftech.com/amd-launches-gpu-open-cgi-gaming-professional-compute/#ixzz3yQsLnSsP


Mais uma ideia excelente da AMD, abrir um leque de ferramentas aos devs, o unico problema aqui é que a AMD precisa de recuperar quota de mercado para estas ideias todas que tem vindo a apresentar começarem a ganhar forma e sentido.
Outra coisa que me parece evidente, esta nova forma de comunicação e abertura do Radeon Group, será muito provavelmente tornar esta parte da AMD rentável para uma eventual venda no futuro, dado que no panorama actual, só o Radeon Group poderá trazer lucro nos proximos tempos.











.
AMD launches GPUOpen website

AMD has launched a new website to promote GPUOpen, its initiative intended to assist graphics developers with open source tools, effects, and more.

As the site explains, the point of the tools is to foster more efficient game development. To that end, they are readily downloadable from GitHub and can be shared at will among fellow developers.

A couple of the technologies featured are HIP, a C++ interface that lets you create portable applications to run on any GPU, and AMD's LiquidVR, a Direct3D 11 interface that can empower applications with various GPU features, including multi-GPU support. Effects on display include AMD's TressFX for fancy hair and fur, to name one of many.

A couple of the technologies featured are HIP, a C++ interface that lets you create portable applications to run on any GPU, and AMD's LiquidVR, a Direct3D 11 interface that can empower applications with various GPU features, including multi-GPU support. Effects on display include AMD's TressFX for fancy hair and fur, to name one of many.

Apart from that, there are quite a number of blog posts intended for developer reading.

You can find the website here or via the source link below.

Noticia:
http://www.tweaktown.com/news/49939/...ite/index.html

[Jorge-Vieira]

Interview With AMD's Director Of VR, Daryl Sartain

At CES 2016 I had the pleasure of moderating a panel called “What’s Under The Hood” hosted by The Immersive Technology Alliance at VR Fest, which was a one-day, VR-only event held during CES. That panel was notable because it had all three major CPU and GPU vendors -- AMD, Intel and Nvidia -- all talking about the technology powering Virtual Reality.
AMD was represented by Daryl Sartain, its Director of Virtual Reality and ITA VR Council Chair, and after the panel we got a chance to sit down with him and talk VR one-on-one.
Tom’s Hardware: In your position as Director of Virtual Reality, do you direct AMD’s overall strategy for VR?
Daryl Sartain: Well, to an extent yes. Our organization traditionally focuses on ecosystem-partner relationship management. In the case of VR, it’s an entire category so it’s more than just [managing] traditional partners, it’s [working with] a whole new set of partners, some non-gaming related. But also to the extent of strategy and working with our marketing teams…all of that is within my scope and responsibility.


Rift Pricing And VR-Ready Bundles

TH: The Oculus Rift’s price has been announced, and pre-orders have started, and certain OEMs [Alienware] have announced Rift Bundles with pre-configured VR-ready PCs. Interestingly, all the systems were Nvidia GPU-powered, and Nvidia also just announced its VR Ready program. Will AMD GPUs be available in these Rift bundles, and when do you plan on announcing a similar program to what Nvidia has?
DS: So we are [going to have VR-ready bundles], and that’s something that we need to go address with our OEM partners. We have systems with partners that are OEMs that are “Oculus Ready,” and we need to get that message out. We need to get whatever’s going on [as far as OEMs not announcing AMD-powered Oculus VR offerings] corrected. HP did have an announcement of a VR system with AMD GPUs [R9 390x].

[This year] 2016 is going to be a major year for Virtual Reality as first headsets start shipping to consumers. AMD will continue to expand our leadership position in the industry, working with partners across the entertainment, gaming, scientific, education and media sectors
TH: With regard to these VR-ready bundles, there are supposed to be some upcoming announcements in February from Oculus about discounts available when you buy a bundle, and it seems like these initial bundles will all have Nvidia GPUs. We’re not sure if there will be AMD-powered offerings, too?
DS: We’re in discussion with both Oculus and HTC
TH: Do you have any official comments on the pricing of the Rift and how it may impact the growth of the VR industry this year, and how it may impact the sales of your GPUs? Graphics vendors such as AMD must be counting on VR to kickstart a new round of high-end graphics uptake.
DS: That’s a good question, but the direct answer is, no, I’m not going to respond regarding Oculus’s pricing or its pricing strategy. As an industry, what I can say is [that] we’re actually very, very excited about getting to this point where production starts with Oculus and with HTC.
I don’t want to sound like I’m judging their pricing strategy; as with any new technology, pricing is something that the market will very rapidly establish. So in all likelihood, if there is a pricing adjustment needed, Oculus, HTC -- those guys will see that as they go to market and they’ll adjust.
From our standpoint, yes, I think VR is something that is going to bolster the sale of discrete graphics going through 2016 and going into the following decade.
TH: And do you expect to see the popularity of VR drive down the cost of your high-end offerings?
DS: Yeah, so let me say it differently: We expect to see the popularity of VR drive up the sale of discrete graphics, and the natural market pressures and such are what would drive pricing from our side. If the volumes go up, then yes, I think the overall pricing is going to adjust to accommodate that. But again, I’m not going to quote on any particular model…but I will absolutely say that if the volumes go up, then the overall opportunity for pricing to come down is good.

Mobile GPUs For VR And Project Quantum

TH: Let’s talk about your next-gen architecture, Polaris, and the most popular form factor for computing today, which are laptops. Currently there are very few, if any, VR-capable laptops out there. Can we expect to see mobile GPUs that will be VR-ready this year?
DS: It would be nice if it was this year. My expectation is that it would be a bit of a struggle for true laptop- or notebook-based discrete graphic solutions to meet the VR industry bar that the [VR] headset vendors are setting. I think from their standpoint, they’re afraid of setting too low of a bar, meaning that the user experience is poor and whatnot. Yes, in time we’ll see mobile solutions addressing the VR market -- keep in mind, though, that some of that will come about because the notebook or mobile solutions increase performance and their power, and performance finally meet current established levels, but there’s also a lot of [VR] research going on.
[There are] people in this industry who are driving to put new IP in place, coming up with new software and new solutions that will actually potentially lower the processing requirements [for VR]. So there are different ways of addressing this market, is what I’m getting at. Some of them do it with creative software that still achieves the performance requirements, but enables a different category of silicon.
TH: At the show, Intel just announced its Skull Canyon SFF gaming PC platform, which I guess is using Iris Pro graphics and could potentially be hooked up to an external graphics solution for VR. Earlier in 2015 [at E3], AMD showed off something similar but more powerful, the Project Quantum PC that was showcased powering VR headsets. What happened to that? Wasn’t it a reference design for OEMs to potentially build Quantum PCs for the market?

DS: There were a lot of thoughts behind that, and the industrial design received a great deal of interest across everyone we demoed it with, and honestly, there might still be some discussions with ODMs about manufacturing. When we develop things, generally, we develop those kinds of prototypes for a couple of reasons. One of those is for the traction -- it draws a lot of attention. But when we develop platforms, systems (I have an AMD notebook), we do it because it’s a requisite these days for us as a silicon vendor.
We can’t just say “here’s a new chip.” Twenty years ago we could. Today, you have to provide a full system to demonstrate that, in the case of a notebook, it’s meeting power, thermal, acoustics, you know all the elements of a true system. That’s also true of a desktop, but it’s usually just a graphics card or a motherboard with our CPUs [or GPUs] in them. So my view on the Quantum is, it served primarily, first and foremost, as a goal. And secondarily, it was just really cool-looking. Where it stands today, I honestly don’t know, because it’s a program I’m not directly involved with.
Liquid VR And Open Standards

TH: Will your upcoming VR announcements include anything new with regards to Liquid VR?
DS: We do have developments -- additional, ongoing developments around Liquid VR. When we first started talking about Liquid VR, it represented of a set of features that we had put into development in our APIs and SDKs. But over time it’s turned into a sort of roadmap of [VR] features. So there are additional Liquid VR “next round of features” that we’re employing or developing and putting into our software. Whether we will be prepared or when we’ll announce them, I don’t know. What I can safely say today is that Liquid VR as a message and as a strategy for us doesn’t go away. Hopefully, it simply grows; it gets enhanced as we go forward.

TH: Can you talk about the fact that Liquid VR is built off open standards, versus your competitor’s solution [Nvidia’s proprietary GameWorks VR]? What feedback have you gotten from VR developers and other people in the industry about your approach vs. the competition’s?
DS: That’s an interesting question. There are as many answers as there are people you ask, unfortunately. So our strategy over the years has typically been that we drive for open standards. Meaning if we develop something, an example being some of the first generation of Liquid VR features, many of which are now native in DX12, we see that as a good thing. It’s a good thing because from the ecosystem at large, developers have to make a choice, and the broader their opportunity, the better. So we drive aggressively for open standards, always.
I’m not going to talk on whether our competitors do or don’t [support open standards], but certainly when we talk with OEMs or platform guys, with the [VR] headset vendors, the ISVs, they’re all very positive and excited that supporting open standards is the direction that we’re taking. Do I realistically believe that’s always going to happen, especially early on in VR development? I think we talked a little bit about this at the ITA [panel we moderated] yesterday, that initial development ends up being very much an “I can do it and you cannot” type strategy, but the long term we hope that proprietary optimizations eventually become part of open APIs or SDKs. It’s when they don’t that they become harmful [to the industry].
TH: Right now we have the FreeSync versus G-Sync situation, and it’s frustrating for customers to deal with that.
DS: I agree, and FreeSync, as you can tell from its name, is open and free, and it’s a great technology and a great solution. In the case of FreeSync, it also has the advantage that it doesn’t add cost to the panel, and monitors vendors think that’s great. So you’re right, unfortunately, what that does is that as long as they are both existing out there, it puts the monitor vendors out there in the position of having to make a choice or supporting both, maybe. Ultimately, it’s the consumer that has to be aware of the two and understand the difference. That’s where I think it gets most problematic.

TH: Can you give us your thoughts on console VR [as in PlayStation VR]?
DS: What I will say, more in the category of AMD’s role in the VR Council, is that I think it’s a great thing. I’m not pro or con, positive or negative on phone-based VR. I think it meets and addresses a particular opportunity. I think console VR is absolutely an opportunity to get VR into the market. If we do this right, my belief is that the console VR I think can only be a positive opportunity for us on the PC front.
Meaning, the cost of entry for someone to take what they already have as a console and add a console [VR] headset -- I would expect that’s not a high barrier [to entry]. In the end, if that user base starts to understand and like VR, and has the opportunity to see PC-based VR, which is going to have higher performance potential, at least initially, it does one of two things: It drives up console sales, which is good for us [because AMD APUs power both the PS4 and Xbox One], or it drives up PC sales, [which is] also good for us. I see it as a positive thing either way. I don’t think [console VR] detracts from what we’re doing.
On Mobile VR

TH: Speaking of mobile VR, do you think it will eventually supplant desktop-based VR with mobile SoCs getting more and more powerful with each iteration?
DS: I hope this doesn’t sound too anecdotal: Soon after I started [at AMD], I was with the desktop team, so 10 or 11 years ago there were a lot of discussions both internally and in the industry, saying “So, you’re with the desktop team, that’s going to be gone in two years, right? I mean, with notebooks, no one is going to want a desktop.”
That was a genuine belief system back then. I haven’t looked at the numbers in a long time, but I know from that point until today, there has been a decline in desktop, but not a significant one – it’s been more of a slow decline in desktop annual sales, industry wide. But notebook sales skyrocketed, of course.

Where I’m going is that a new form factor, a new capability, does not in its own right mean the demise of something else. I have a cellphone, a notebook and a desktop computer. I use them differently. I also have at least two gaming consoles at home for my kids. So, do I believe the cellphone will take over --perhaps -- but I don’t see it happening any time soon. I personally don’t see it happening across the board, because I can’t use that size. I want my cellphone to do a number of things, today including gaming, but in no way does it include the level of gaming or user experience I have on my notebook or desktop.
By the way, I don’t expect my notebook to do that [gaming] either, because the burden to do that is loss of battery life.
It’s a choice people make, and I don’t think we’re at the point where people are choosing to go away from something entirely. Especially if there’s a new feature like VR. I think VR is going to resurrect [desktop PC use] to some degree, reinvigorate interest in a high-performance system at home, something that many people have gone without for a very long time. And one last point is that if VR was explicitly just for gaming, then I think many households would have little interest in it. I think we have an opportunity if we get the right user experience or apps to put performance PCs into households that today don’t have them, so I’m excited about it.
API Showdown

TH: Can you give us your thoughts on the differences between using Vulkan versus DX12, and also what’s happening with Mantle with regards to VR?
DS: I view Mantle as something – because we did a lot of contribution to the features into DX12 – that has been spun into DX12 in so many ways. But to your question on Vulkan versus DX12, without getting into all the religious aspect, what I said yesterday [on the VR Fest panel] is that I think that both serve a need and add value. Can you make an argument that one is better than the other? You can make an argument about anything. Just bring a lawyer into the room [laughs].

But I do believe that, and what I most am concerned about is our ISVs, the ISV community, where they gain the greatest benefit. You know, there are some people developing on Linux, all different flavors of life – so it’s a difficult question as to which [API] should we be focused on, which one is better. My opinion is that Windows as a platform, as an OS, is far better and far more evolved today than some of the previous generations, and that’s to be expected. DX12 and its integration into Windows is a great experience, is a great development environment, and has great compatibility. Does that mean that Vulkan doesn’t have a place? No. I think that answer really has to come from the development community, not from us.
TH: Before we end things then, do you have anything to add?
DS: I think my goal and my objective is that AMD is going to make a very strong comeback into the development community and into the market this year with VR, and with our new platforms, which we will be talking about as the year evolves.

Noticia:
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/int...-vr,30957.html

[Enzo]

A estratégia de 2012 foi um flop monumental. Retiraram o interesse que tinham em gpus, para se dedicarem a apus e socs. Tipo, acharam que o resto do mundo ia querer budgets systems?
Se só existir um fornecedor de gráficas, a quem eles achavam que iamos comprar? Estou contente que tenham repensado a estratégia, e só tenho pena que tenham demorado tanto tempo para o fazerem. Vamos ver se é desta que se levantam do buraco onde se enfiaram.

[Jorge-Vieira]

AMD: GPUOpen could be used for smartphone, tablet graphics

AMD's technology initiative GPUOpen is primarily intended for PC development, but because of its open source nature, it's already appeared in console games -- Rise of the Tomb Raider being one of them. AMD's Head of Global Technical Marketing Robert Hallock says an interview with XDA Developers it's "very easy for developers to port and scale them" to this end.

Hallock also states GPUOpen could possibly be used for smartphone and tablet graphics purposes should a developer be willing to do the work.

The project isn't going to rake in huge wads of cash for AMD as far as we can tell, but gamers everywhere are already enjoying the benefits, and statements like these encourage that further.

Noticia:
http://www.tweaktown.com/news/50215/...ics/index.html

[Jorge-Vieira]

AMD Vulkan 1.0 Spec Announcement

AMD’s Radeon Technologies Group (RTG) is excited about the imminent release of the ratified Vulkan 1.0 Specification by the Khronos™ Group. We started this journey in June of 2014 when AMD submitted the XGL proposal based on our work on Mantle. Once accepted by the OpenGL Next working group, AMD helped steward it through committee via our role as spec editors.
With this transition to public availability of the Vulkan 1.0 API specifications, AMD will be releasing a beta version of our Vulkan™ API-enabled Radeon™ Software driver. This new driver, in-concert with Radeon™ graphics hardware, enables PC game developers to remove historical software bottlenecks which will unleash new, rich visual gaming experiences.
As a complement to OpenGL™, descended from AMD’s Mantle, and forged by the industry, Vulkan™ is a powerful low-overhead graphics API that gives software developers deep control over the performance, efficiency, and capabilities of Radeon™ GPUs and multi-core CPUs. Compared to OpenGL, Vulkan™ substantially reduces API overhead, which is background work a GPU or CPU must do to interpret what a game is asking of the hardware. Reducing this overhead gives hardware much more time to spend on delivering meaningful features, performance, and image quality. Vulkan™ also exposes GPU hardware features not ordinarily accessible through OpenGL, and uniquely supports Windows® 7, Windows® 8.1, Windows® 10, Android, and Linux.

With the consortium of hardware and software companies that make up the Khronos™ Group, AMD is looking forward to the delivering the latest and greatest game rendering technologies to millions of users and many operating systems simultaneously:

“The release of the Vulkan™ 1.0 specification is a huge step forward for developers. The Vulkan™ API, which was derived from Mantle, will bring the benefits of low-overhead high-performance Graphics API to the benefit of cross-platform and cross-vendor targeted applications,“ said Raja Koduri, Senior Vice President and Chief Architect, Radeon Technologies Group, AMD. “The promotion of open and scalable technologies continues to be the focus at AMD, as a pioneer in the low-overhead API space. As a member of the Khronos™ Group, AMD is proud to collaborate with hardware and software industry leaders to develop the Vulkan™ API to ignite the next evolution in PC game development.”

Noticia:
http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/amd...ouncement.html

[Jorge-Vieira]

The Vulkan Graphics API And AMD Radeon GPUs

In addition to announcements from NVIDIA and Intel today, AMD is also talking about what the Vulkan API means for its graphics cards. The slides below outline the benefits of Vulkan on Radeon graphics cards and this blog post explains AMD’s involvement in this comprehensive industry alliance.

AMD Radeon Software Beta for Vulkan and release notes can be found here.

Noticia:
http://www.hardocp.com/news/2016/02/...s#.VsQ9kOZv4vc

[Jorge-Vieira]

Radeon Technologies Group Getting Ready To Host an AMA on 3rd March – Will Discuss Polaris, Fury X2, VR, DirectX 12 and More

[QUOTE]We have just learned (via VideoCardZ) that for the first time in history, AMD RTG is going to be holding an AMA over at Reddit. The Ask Me Anything session is going to happen on the 3rd of March and could be the perfect opportunity for AMD to give out a few hints about its upcoming GPUs. In fact, the topics that they will be discussing include Polaris and Fury X2. Talk about its Zen processors however, seems off-limits – which more than makes sense considering this is an AMA with RTG.

AMD gets ready to hold RTG AMA session on the 3rd of March 2016

The announcement about the AMA was posted over at the AMD Sub-Reddit about a day back and is already filled with some very pertinent questions. AMD hasn’t done anything like this before but this is an extremely positive sign, since it means that they are reaching out to their customers directly. This is one of the many new ideologies RTG has started pursuing in recent times – driving home the impression of competency.

The first reddit AMD Q&A/AMA is happening soon. Right here.
The Q&A is open to all topics dealing with anything under the Radeon Technologies Group (the Radeon division of AMD). Some big secrets could be unveiled this Thursday, so bring your best questions! Likely topics of discussion will most likely include Vulkan, FreeSync, GPUOpen, Polaris, Fury X2, VR, DirectX 12, and anything else you’re curious about.
Don’t ask about Zen. It’s still a super secret.

AMD has already revealed quite a lot of snippets about the upcoming Polaris architecture – including the fact that it would comprise of two GPUs: Polaris 10 and Polaris 11. We know that the node shrink from 28nm to 14nm FinFET should give theme a roughly 2.0x boost in perf per watt, but with architectural improvements this number can go as high as 2.5x (something AMD execs have been hinting at as well). The RTG spokesperson hinted on topics including Vulkan, FreeSync, GPUOpen, Polaris, Fury X2, VR, DirectX 12 and anything else users on reddit might feel like asking.
Because of this, it is very likely that the company will divulge some hints regarding its plans if the right question is asked. We will be covering the Reddit AMA and be on the lookout for the revelation of anything that isnt’t common PR stuff. We also have an exclusive of our own coming up in a few hours time covering a specific VR portion of RTG. Any readers that have questions of their own to ask AMD, can head over to reddit and sign up for the AMA. Keep in mind that the thread for the actual AMA will probably be different than the one linked here. Here are the top voted questions on the thread right now by user Khagerou:

Thanks in advance RTG guys.
Did moving to the 14nm FFet node after being stuck in 28nm planar transistor node present any significant challenges that were different from previous shrinks?
Can you discuss the yields on the Polaris dies right now?
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Did the recent earthquake in Taiwan affect the production schedule in any major way?
How did Mantle effect the development on DX12 besides catalyzing progress, was there a significant amount of Mantle going into the development of DX12 or was it just the philosophy of low CPU/Driver overheads?
AFR would be of greatest benefit in VR, so is there going to be an increased focus on CrossFire support in preparation for big VR launches?
How are you guys going to cool the FuryX2? Is it going to be a blower like the dev kits Roy Taylor has been posting or is it going to be a liquid cooling loop like the 295×2? Also any idea of a price point?
In regards to Polaris can you discuss any of the GPUs we could be seeing sometime in the near future, like the Fury and FuryX successor, are we going to see a low profile card like the Nano again?
Is there anything you can disclose about GPUOpen tools being deployed in games that are in development, or even some of the interesting application people are trying to make using the compute tools?
As far as FreeSync monitors, do you see an increased adoption of FreeSync technology from monitor and panel manufacturers because of HDMI support?
Hope I didn’t bore you guys with the question. Cheers.

Noticia:
http://wccftech.com/amd-rtg-ama-3-ma...#ixzz41lGDsH6N