Imagination’s new ray-tracing Wizard GPU may bring photorealistic graphics to future iOS devices

Apple graphics chipset suppler, Imagination Technologies, today announced a new GPU family that adds ray tracking technology to the PowerVR lineup. Apple currently uses the PowerVR G6430 graphics chipset in its A7 processor that powers the iPhone 5s, the iPad Air and the Retina iPad mini. Ray tracing allows for complex and more natural lighting on 3D models, creating photo realistic, cinema-quality images. The technique is commonly used by special effects masters and computer animation artists to create lifelike images. The Unity 5 Game engine recently adopted the technology, which provide real-time lightmaps for mobile game development. PowerVR Wizard GPU is a significant leap forward for mobile devices, bringing a level of graphics rendering that was not previously possible. For the better part of the last eight years, we have been busy developing unique hardware and software technologies to radically lower the cost and dramatically increase the efficiency and performance of ray tracing. This work culminates at GDC 2014 with the official launch of the PowerVR Wizard GPU family, a range of IP processors that offer high-performance ray tracing, graphics and compute in a power envelope suitable for mobile and embedded use cases. This opens up the potential of highly photorealistic, computer generated imagery to a host of new real-time applications and markets not previously possible. The first Wizard product will be the PowerVR GR6500, which is built on Imagination’s PowerVR Rogue architecture and includes the company’s recently launched PowerVR Series6XT GPU processors. Then PowerVR GR6500 is expected to land in retail products sometime in 2015. Apple has used Imagination’s PowerVR graphics throughout its iPhone line and is a minor investor in the graphics hardware company. It is possible that Apple may be interested in this technology for its future iOS devices, but the company has not been explicitly named by Imagination as an early adopter. [Via MacRumors] Continue reading →

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