Rasterization using Larrabee

I've blogged before about the discussed shift of graphics rendering from dedicated GPUs, which has taken place from the mid to late 90s, to the main processor. An article at the excellent Gamasutra website discusses, for the first time, exactly how that process will be implemented, written by veteran graphics programmer Mike Abrash and based on the architecture of the new Intel Larrabee processor.

This article takes a close look at the Larrabee New Instructions to one of the major problem areas - rasterization - with the view of taking advantage of the strengths of Larrabee's CPU-based architecture. According to Mike, it is important to state that performance with the Larrabee New Instructions will vary greatly from one application to the next - there's not much to be done with purely scalar code - but diving into Larrabee rasterization in detail gives you a good sense of what it's like to apply the Larrabee New Instructions to at least one sort of non-obvious application.

The article goes in great depth for this and is an excellent read (and perhaps one the first few detailed prefaces of the extinction of graphics cards). Read it here.