The NVIDIA Turing GPU Architecture Deep Dive: Prelude to GeForce RTX
by Nate Oh on September 14, 2018 12:30 PM ESTUnpacking 'RTX', 'NGX', and Game Support
One of the more complicated aspects of GeForce RTX and Turing is not only the 'RTX' branding, but how all of Turing's features are collectively called the NVIDIA RTX platform. To recap, here is a quick list of the separate but similarly named groupings:
- NVIDIA RTX Platform - general platform encompassing all Turing features, including advanced shaders
- NVIDIA RTX Raytracing technology - name for ray tracing technology under RTX platform
- GameWorks Raytracing - raytracing denoiser module for GameWorks SDK
- GeForce RTX - the brand connected with games using NVIDIA RTX real time ray tracing
- GeForce RTX - the brand for graphics cards
For NGX, it technically falls under the RTX platform, and includes Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS). Using a deep neural network (DNN) specific to the game and trained on super high quality 64x supersampled images, or 'ground truth' images, DLSS uses tensor cores to infer high quality antialiased results. In the standard mode, DLSS renders at a lower input sample count, typically 2x less but may depend on the game, and then infers a result, which at target resolution is similar quality to TAA result. A DLSS 2X mode exists, where the input is rendered at the final target resolution and then combined with a larger DLSS network.
Fortunately, GFE is not required for NGX features to work, and all the necessary NGX files will be available via the standard Game Ready drivers, though it's not clear how often DNNs for particular games would be updated.
In the case of RTX-OPS, it describes a workload for a frame where both RT and Tensor Cores are utilized; currently, the classic scenario would be with a game with real time ray tracing and DLSS. So by definition, it only accurately measures that type of workload. However, this metric currently does not apply to any game, as DXR has not yet released. For the time being, the metric does not describe performance any publicly available game.
In sum, then the upcoming game support aligns with the following table.
| Planned NVIDIA Turing Feature Support for Games | |||||
| Game | Real Time Raytracing | Deep Learning Supersampling (DLSS) | Turing Advanced Shading | ||
| Ark: Survival Evolved | Yes | ||||
| Assetto Corsa Competizione | Yes | ||||
| Atomic Heart | Yes | Yes | |||
| Battlefield V | Yes | ||||
| Control | Yes | ||||
| Dauntless | Yes | ||||
| Darksiders III | Yes | ||||
| Deliver Us The Moon: Fortuna | Yes | ||||
| Enlisted | Yes | ||||
| Fear The Wolves | Yes | ||||
| Final Fantasy XV | Yes | ||||
| Fractured Lands | Yes | ||||
| Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice | Yes | ||||
| Hitman 2 | Yes | ||||
| In Death | Yes | ||||
| Islands of Nyne | Yes | ||||
| Justice | Yes | Yes | |||
| JX3 | Yes | Yes | |||
| KINETIK | Yes | ||||
| MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries | Yes | Yes | |||
| Metro Exodus | Yes | ||||
| Outpost Zero | Yes | ||||
| Overkill's The Walking Dead | Yes | ||||
| PlayerUnknown Battlegrounds | Yes | ||||
| ProjectDH | Yes | ||||
| Remnant: From the Ashes | Yes | ||||
| SCUM | Yes | ||||
| Serious Sam 4: Planet Badass | Yes | ||||
| Shadow of the Tomb Raider | Yes | ||||
| Stormdivers | Yes | ||||
| The Forge Arena | Yes | ||||
| We Happy Few | Yes | ||||
| Wolfenstein II | Yes | ||||
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StormyParis - Friday, September 14, 2018 - link
Fascinating subject and excellent treatment. I feel informed and intelligent, so thank you.Gc - Friday, September 14, 2018 - link
Nice introductory article. I wonder if the ray tracing hardware might have other uses, such as path finding in space, or collision detection in explosions.The copy editing was a let down.
Copy editor: please review the "amount vs. number" categorical distinction in English grammar. Parts of this article, that incorrectly use "amount", such as "amount of rays" instead of "number of rays", are comprehensible but jarring to read, in the way that a computer translation can be comprehensible but annoying to read.
(yes: "amount of noise". no: "amount of rays, usually 1 or 2 per pixel". yes: "number of rays, usually 1 or 2 per pixel".) (Recall that "number" is for countable items, that can be singular or plural, such as 1 ray or 2 rays. "Amount" is for an unspecified quantity such as liquid or money, "amount of water in the tank" or "amount of money in the bank". But if pluralizable units are specified, then those units are countable, so "number of liters in the tank", or "number of dollars in the bank". [In this article, "amount of noise" does not refer to an event as in 1 noise, 2 noises, but rather to an unspecified quantity or ratio.] A web search for "amount vs. number" will turn up other explanations.)
Gc - Friday, September 14, 2018 - link
(Hope you're all staying dry if you're in Florence's storm path.)edzieba - Saturday, September 15, 2018 - link
" I wonder if the ray tracing hardware might have other uses, such as path finding in space, or collision detection in explosions."Yes, these were called out (as well as gun hitscan and AI direct visibility checks) in their developer focused GDC presentation.
edzieba - Saturday, September 15, 2018 - link
One thing that might be worth highlighting (or exploring further) is that raytraced reflections and lighting/shadowing are necessary for VR, where screen-space reflections produce very obviously incorrect resultsAchaios - Saturday, September 15, 2018 - link
Τhis is epic. It should be taught as a special lesson in Marketing classes. NVIDIA is selling fanboys technology for which there is presently no practical use for, and the cards are already sold out. Might as well give NVIDIA license to print money.iwod - Saturday, September 15, 2018 - link
Aren't we fast running to Memory Bandwidth bottleneck?Assuming we get 7nm next year at 8192 CUDA Core, that will need at least 80% more bandwidth, or 1TB/s. Neither 512bit memory nor HBM2 could offer that.
HStewart - Saturday, September 15, 2018 - link
I wondering when professional rendering packages support RTX - I personally have Lightwave 3D 2018 and because of Newtek's excellent upgrade process - I could see supporting it in future. I could see this technology do wonders for Movie and Game creations - reducing the dependency on CPU cpresYaleZhang - Saturday, September 15, 2018 - link
Increased power use is disappointing. Is the 225W TDP for 2080 the power used or the heat dissipated? If it's power used, then that would include the 27W power used by VirtualLink. So then the real power usage would be 198 W.willis936 - Sunday, September 16, 2018 - link
I've been in signal integrity for five years. I write automation scripts for half million dollar oscilloscopes. I love it. It's my jam. Why on god's green earth does nvidia think their audience cares about eye diagrams? They mean literally nothing to the target audience. They're not talking to system integrators or chip manufacturers. Even if they were a single eye diagram with an eye width measurement means next to nothing beyond demonstrating that they have an image of what a signal at a given baud rate should look like (it's unclear if it's simulated or taken from one of their test monkeys). If they really wanted to blow us away they could say something like they've verified 97% confidence that their memory interface/channel BER <= 1E-15 when the spec commands BER <= 1E-12 or something. It's just a jargon image to show off how much they must really know their stuff. It just strikes me as tacky.