Semi-official confirmation: Navi to support ray tracing

euskalzabe

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
May 9, 2009
Messages
1,478
This is not directly from AMD, but Sony just gave Wired a few pointers on what to expect from PS5. They mentioned 8-core Ryzen as a CPU, and that they'll use "a custom variant of Radeon’s Navi family, will support ray tracing".

Read the interview here: https://www.wired.com/story/exclusive-sony-next-gen-console/

Now I'm even more excited I've been waiting for Navi. Let's see how it compares to the RTX cards.
 
We’ve been hearing all this for a while. I suppose confirmation is nice?

All that said though any DX12 card is capable of DXR, so even current Vega cards can use raytracing. It’s just not enabled in drivers, and rightly so if the performance isn’t there.
 
  • Like
Reactions: N4CR
like this
Navi is expected to be the Vega 56 replacement, which is currently a little faster than the 1660 Ti.

If AMD only adds the dedicated INT32 support structure non-RTX Turning cars have, it would be fast enough for them to enable the feature. And then they could add dedicated RT units for the future higher-end cards, and the console variant.
 
Since AMD has more shader power than nvidia, I thinks its possible navi could outrun Pascal in raytracing and maybe even compete with the RTX2060
 
Since AMD has more shader power than nvidia, I thinks its possible navi could outrun Pascal in raytracing and maybe even compete with the RTX2060

I don't think we will be able to ride that train to RT town. I don't believe the RT API is "to the metal" like DX12, so it will be up to AMD to offer more optimized drivers. You know how unoptimzied their drivers tend to be.
 
Last edited:
It’s also possible that Sony has asked for a custom variant with additional silicon to accelerate hybrid ray tracing operations similar to RTX GPUs
 
I don't think we will be able to ride that train to RT town. I don't believe the RT API is "to the metal" like DX12, so it will be up to AMD to offer more optimized drivers. You know how unoptimzied their drivers tend to be.
Well its integrated into DX12 so its as "to the metal" as it can be.
 
It’s also possible that Sony has asked for a custom variant with additional silicon to accelerate hybrid ray tracing operations similar to RTX GPUs

Even if Sony is sponsoring the development, I can't see AMD agreeing on terms that don't eventually allow it to be rolled out to their broader product lines. And with the v1 api for raytracing in games being part of DX12 even exclusive Sony sponsoring seems unlikely; because support for XBox v.next would almost certainly have been part of MS's goals from when they started working with AMD before anything went public.

I'm assuming the initial push was from MS not NVidia because it launched as a DX12 feature not an NVidia proprietary one; in which case AMD would have been involved from the beginning even though NVidia got hardware out first.
 
Even if Sony is sponsoring the development, I can't see AMD agreeing on terms that don't eventually allow it to be rolled out to their broader product lines. And with the v1 api for raytracing in games being part of DX12 even exclusive Sony sponsoring seems unlikely; because support for XBox v.next would almost certainly have been part of MS's goals from when they started working with AMD before anything went public.

I'm assuming the initial push was from MS not NVidia because it launched as a DX12 feature not an NVidia proprietary one; in which case AMD would have been involved from the beginning even though NVidia got hardware out first.
I don’t disagree with any of that - the xbox had features with programmable shaders that later made it into mainstream retail video cards, but the console GPU had a custom implementation.
 
Back
Top