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Guest from the Future - Integrated Graphics (Intel GPU) in Intel Haswell



I'll start with a message for those who did not know, and reminders for everyone else - according to the testimony of an incorruptible statistics calculation script (by saul ), Intel’s most popular blog post in 2012 turned out to be Mind Games. We're working with Intel HD Graphics. And playing? " To date, it has been viewed more than 70,000 times, which is four and a half times the average for similar articles. Which suggests that if an Intel GPU has such an interesting present, then the near future should also be interesting.

This post tells about the features of Intel HD Graphics (directly graphics, media, and Display Port), integrated into the 2013 Intel CPU, codenamed “Haswell,” and also tests the reader’s interest.

So, Haswell, the 4th generation of CPU microarchitecture Intel Core, the final "-so" for "tick" Ivy Bridge, 22-nm production technology. The processor has not yet come out, but quite a lot is already known about its features, and, in particular, about the integrated GPU. So, Intel engineers talked about this back in September 2012 at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco. And in January 2013 at the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas, the graphical performance of the Haswell system was publicly demonstrated!
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But let's start with the theory. There are no fundamental (read “revolutionary”) changes to the Intel HD Graphics architecture in Haswell compared to the Ivy Bridge, but there are new features, as well as noticeable improvements that lead to increased performance and a significant reduction in power consumption.

Graphic subsystem:





And if we talk about doubling, then the performance of almost all blocks of fixed functionality of pixel processing (Fixed functions units), uniform for all GT and shown on the left side of the diagram above is illegible, and below is more readable, doubled compared to Ivy Bridge HD Graphics .



Pay attention to the upper corner - at the entrance of the graphic pipeline is located the "Minister-Administrator" of commands - Command Streamer (CS). This unit itself is not new in Intel HD Graphics, but here it is supplemented by another unit - Resource Streamer (RS) - Resource Manager. The RS parser “runs ahead” of the CS, preparing the necessary data for its operation, that is, doing what the driver on the CPU had previously done. What is within the framework of the general trend of shifting work from a general purpose CPU to a GPU and freeing up a CPU for another job ... or for sleeping, that is, to save energy.

Also note that the ring bus (Ring) exchange with the last level cache and memory is separated from the CPU Haswell and can be programmed regardless of the processor frequency

And finally, "the performance of texture samplers in some modes has increased up to four times." And, although mathematics says that “up to four”, it can be “1.5”, but Intel is an honest company, so here this growth is exactly “slightly less than four”.

January 2013, Las Vegas, Casino Consumer Electronic Show. Intel shows a live and not-quite-usual Haswell GPU system. Namely - this is the so-called "Engineering Sample", mobile Haswell GT3, hidden installed in the desktop case. Here it is, in the picture AnandTech:
image
The performance of Haswell GT3 is compared with the ASUS UX15 with the NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M using the example of Dirt 3 (1080p mode) and turns out to be “subjectively identical”, although accurate performance data is not provided for obvious reasons - the product has not yet been released. Here is the original AnandTech post , to which I can only add that for many years working at Intel I have not met a single case in which the performance of the system that has entered the market turned out to be worse than that of the engineering sample. Usually it happens the other way around - the released systems surpass their engineering ancestors, which adds value to the result shown at CES.

From the point of view of graphic application developers, the methodology for working with Haswell Graphics does not change compared with previous generations. You should still use common sense and Intel GPA for profiling.

Media subsystem:


All purple blocks in the diagram refer to the video processing subsystem.
Among them there is a new Haswell-specific - Video Quality Engine (Video Quality Block). That is, various video quality enhancements exist in Intel HD Graphics — noise reduction, deinterlacing, skin tone correction, adaptive contrast change, and other similar features (which, by the way, if you want / need, are easily disabled in Intel HD Graphics settings). But only in Haswell Graphics allocated them in a separate block, and most importantly, added two more features to them, which you hardly want to disable. This is Image Stabilization and Frame Rate Conversion .
Image stabilization is an improvement in video implemented in the gland, taken from shaking hands without a fixed camera on a fixed tripod. The appearance of this feature could be easily foreseen, if you knew that video compression using MPEG and similar formats uses motion estimation , also performed in Intel HD Graphics hardware. And knowing how the movement takes place between individual frames, it is easy to understand that this “movement” is just a jitter of the picture, and accordingly compensate for it.

The frame rate conversion is a transition in video from 24 or 30 frames per second to 60. Moreover, it is not based on the reproduction of existing frames and not even on their simple interpolation, but on the same principles as image stabilization. That is, the interframe motion estimation is calculated, after which a smart interpolation is made on its basis with the help of motion compensation (motion compensation), which gives a smoother picture.


The remaining blocks of the media subsystem are the same as in Ivy Bridge, only better.
Namely, Haswell Graphics supports in hardware :

Please note that the Media Sampler blocks that are actively involved in video coding - they receive the above-mentioned motion estimation, are cumulatively added in the GT2 and GT3 configurations, so from these modifications we should expect an increase in performance not only graphics, but also work with video.

Display support.


Haswell Graphics supports:

Only the last paragraph needs explanation. Collage mode is the connection of four displays (via two special splitters - dongles) to display Quad Full HD. Here is the corresponding beautiful picture, which demonstrates the difference of the collage mode from just the “expanded display” (position of the taskbar), as well as from the 4K monitor (cost):


And here is an equally beautiful live video demonstration at the Intel Developer Forum:


By the way, you can enjoy this beauty right now - a system with an Intel Ivy Bridge + z77 chipset, released in October 2012, supports a 4K display.

And finally, the main thing. Who is this girl in the photo, does she work at Intel, what does she do with these ribbons-boxes (or are they doing something with her)? - I do not know. Just mentioned at the beginning of the post about Intel HD Graphics began with photos of girls promoters from Intel, so I decided to "do not violate the format" here.

Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/168271/

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