Ray tracing is all the jazz in modern-day video games. The rendering technology brings much better graphics to video games and the results look stunning. The technology will become available on smartphones soon thanks to ARM’s newly released GPU, the Immortalis G715.
Immortalis G715 is ARM’s first-ever GPU to bring hardware-accelerated ray tracing support. The previous generation could only do so on a software level, but the new G715 has hardware-level support, increasing performance by a significant amount. ARM says that it will only use 4% of the shader core area while increasing performance by more than 300%.
The video below demonstrates the improvements in graphics thanks to the new GPU. Pay close attention to the reflections and soft shadows. With ray tracing the lighting and shadows in the area look massively better and more realistic compared to the non-ray traced version.
provider: youtube
url: https://youtu.be/Tmxbu2FmRsk
src in org: https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Tmxbu2FmRsk?feature=oembed&modestbranding=0&showinfo=0&rel=0&autoplay=1
src in mod: https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Tmxbu2FmRsk?modestbranding=0&showinfo=0&rel=0&autoplay=1
src gen org: https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Tmxbu2FmRsk
ARM’s Mali GPUs are not going anywhere either. In fact, the chip designer has unveiled two new Mali GPUs called Mali G615 and G517. The primary difference between the two is core count. G615 gets 6 or fewer cores, G715 has 7 to 9, while Immortalis can go with 10 and more.
All three GPUs have support for Variable Rate Shading (VRS), which allows the chip to allocate graphical resources better. For instance, it will allow the GPU to render objects in focus at full resolution (such as the player character) while using fewer resources for other items (e.g. a building in the background). This can reduce power consumption and increase frame rates by up to 40%.
All three have an improved execution engine as well, which should increase performance by 15%. Machine learning performance has increased twofold as well. This makes them ARM’s best GPUs so far.
ARM is working with Unity and Epic, two very popular game engines for PC and smartphones, to develop new graphics technologies. The company has already developed Adaptive Performance, which allows the game to set frame rates based on previous frames and temperatures.
The first chipsets with ARM’s Immortalis G715 are expected to launch in early 2023.
