Tim Sweeney: "End of the GPU by 2020"

Dark Pulse said:

Tim Sweeney's been a man who's made a lot of interesting predictions on just how gaming - and PC hardware are going to evolve. His latest prediction: We're all going back to software rendering.

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Some guys don't "predict", they just make it happen

I guess this can be said now that everyone seems to have forgotten about 3dfx and the large role they had in UE1.

Current games already make extensive use of software in their rendering. Remember, pixel and vertex shaders are actually small software programs executed by the graphics card.

eventually the world will end its the truth but none of us now when.

Maybe, but not that soon. There's a reason GPUs are used so much: they're the only viable method of the massively parallel computing he talks about. Just try doing that on a consumer level CPU. Nope, maybe 2050

Sounds good in theory, because most of these hardware-limitations never made any sense.
In a way this mimics the way computers have evolved (from static/fixed processing units that could barely add two digits to the complex cpu's we've got today).

Let's just hope that this 'fully programmable parallel processing unit' gets a language that is standardised between manufacturers like the current cpu's are (and preferably a bit more).

There's just one question remaining : will this superpowerful ppu ever replace the cpu as the main processing chip ?
And if it does so ... won't that have proven Intel's idea that the cpu should handle everything ?

I'd personally say we'd still have two chips (not necessarily separate) -- one General Purpose, one heavily parallel.

Funnily enough I had made a thread a few days ago about people's prediction on 2020.
What amaze me is that Tim is talking PC. Epic has only proved to be a console company nowadays.

but isn't the world ending in 2012? D:

JaFO said:

There's just one question remaining : will this superpowerful ppu ever replace the cpu as the main processing chip ?
And if it does so ... won't that have proven Intel's idea that the cpu should handle everything ?

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What? You don't understand what he's saying.

Edit: Instead of making a dick comment and not explaining I'll add that that is exactly what Tim is talking about, the cpu doing everything. Not a separate processor.

Also, Tim has mentioned this before... so it's not really new. I don't remember where though, anyone remember or have a link? I think it was a UT3 interview or it was around that time with the UT3 hype.

By 2020 you'll be playing PC games that are installed on a Google/Amazon VM and you'll only need 256mb RAM with a 512mHz processor.

Kantham said:

What amaze me is that Tim is talking PC. Epic has only proved to be a console company nowadays.

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Snore..

Also, he's not even talking about PC or Console. He's talking about computer architecture.

SleepyHe4d said:

What? You don't understand what he's saying.

Edit: Instead of making a dick comment and not explaining I'll add that that is exactly what Tim is talking about, the cpu doing everything. Not a separate processor.

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No he's not. One of the things Tim is saying in his presentation is that the GPU was we currently know it (communication through APIs like Glide/OpenGL/DirectX) will go. Instead, you will get a more general purpose processor that on which you execute code. This is already happening right now on GeForce 8x an later through CUDA, and similar on AMD/Ati. Combine this with the "normal" CPU and you get the platform which Tim is talking about.
The "CPU" platform Tim is talking about is much like the Cell architecture (not as currently present in the PS3, a lot of changes are needed, but the overall idea is the same). Instead of a GPU thing you have a bunch of stream processors (which most modern GPUs contain and use for the shaders) which perform "pure functional" routines (like physics, collision detection, scene traversal, path finding, ...) and execute graphics shaders. And you have a bunch of cores which perform game state code, and other mode structural complex objects. And a "controller" which does the old and slow sequential stuff like I/O.
This is different from the current system because there is no (rendering) pipeline. The software is in full control on what and when certain things are executed by the various processors.

So to summarize things, there's a planned shift from a specialized circuit that handles graphics only to something like a general purpose signal processor which can handle other tasks like physics simulation ?

That shift has already taken place, it just has to move a bit, and evolve some more.

elmuerte said:

No he's not. One of the things Tim is saying in his presentation is that the GPU was we currently know it (communication through APIs like Glide/OpenGL/DirectX) will go. Instead, you will get a more general purpose processor that on which you execute code.

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Well I didn't see the presentation, but if this is true then they need to make the article more clear. I didn't read anything about a new type of processor, just "software implementation, backed by massive computing power." So I just assumed he was talking about CPUs rendering everything with software.

I was also going by what I read on Tim talking about this subject before. Don't really remember the details though.

As for the rest, I'm completely lost, I don't understand the inner workings of GPUs.

It's still a HELLUVA long time but why do I feel like I wasted $500 on a GPU?

Or am I just misunderstanding the fact that GPU's will eventually be considered part of a computer systems' general-purpose processing and not just in graphics/physics calculations? (Meaning, they won't be obselete - instead, integrated.)

I feel like the title of "End of the GPU by 2020" brews a misconception. Does it mean, GPUs become useless or GPUs simply turn into something more than a "video card"? (Seeing the cGPU architecture nVidia wants to introduce in the GeForce 300's)

SleepyHe4d said:

As for the rest, I'm completely lost, I don't understand the inner workings of GPUs.

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The strength of graphics processors and DSPs is that they can process a lot of information in parallel (think of a factory with many production lines) whereas a GPU serves it's purpose as a jack of all trades.

GTD-Carthage said:

Or am I just misunderstanding the fact that GPU's will eventually be considered part of a computer systems' general-purpose processing and not just in graphics/physics calculations? (Meaning, they won't be obselete - instead, integrated.

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As I understand things, they will gradually be transformed into something that can serve a larger purpose. Graphics would have already been integrated in the main chips. The advantage would be that information could transit very rapidly (a few tens of GBs per second) but that would make CPUs more dense and more expensive to produce.

Since the 0.18 micron barrier was broken in terms of fabrication process it's become apparent that silicon is slowly reaching it's limits with data being corrupted by quantum effects. Since transforming electronic signals into optical ones is still messy, the only way to go forward at the moment is to design efficient multicore or multiprocessor systems.

At the moment, the fact that information has to transit through the main board makes things much slower even if a dedicated bus like PCI-E is used. However, things are handled such that all the raw information is digested in one go and all that is needed when handling graphics is to regurgitate the processed information to the screen. There are a few other types of tasks that could be handled in the same way.

i thinks when Games and such reach a point where they are 100% life like then computers will slowly start to creep up on the GPU until they overtake it thus making it redundant.