It's quite useful for things like skia or piet-gpu/vello or the general category of "things that use the GPU that aren't games" (image/video editors, effects pipelines, compute, etc etc etc)

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Groxx 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

would it also apply to stuff like the Switch, and relatively high-end "mobile" gaming in general? (I'm not sure what those chips actually look like tho)

there are also some arm laptops that just run Qualcomm chips, the same as some phones (tablets with a keyboard, basically, but a bit more "PC"-like due to running Windows).

AFAICT the fusion seems likely to be an accurate prediction.

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deliciousturkey 5 days ago | parent [-]

Switch has its own API. The GPU also doesn't have limitations you'd associate with "mobile". In terms of architecture, it's a full desktop GPU with desktop-class features.

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kllrnohj 5 days ago | parent [-]

well, it's a desktop GPU with desktop-class features from 2014 which makes it quite outdated relative to current mobile GPUs. The just released Switch 2 uses an Ampere-based GPU, which means it's desktop-class for 2020 (RTX 3xxx series), which is nothing to scoff about but "desktop-class features" is a rapidly moving target and the Switch ends up being a lot closer to mobile than it does to desktop since it's always launching with ~2 generations old GPUs.

	▲	deliciousturkey a day ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The context was Only if you're ignoring mobile entirely. One of the things Vulkan did which would be a shame to lose is it unified desktop and mobile GPU APIs. In this context, both old Switch and Switch 2 have full desktop-class GPUs. They don't need to care about the API problems that mobile vendors imposed to Vulkan.
	▲	pjmlp 5 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Still beats the design of all Web 3D APIs, and has much better development tooling, let that sink in how behind they are.

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pjmlp 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Those already have their own abstraction API, and implementing a RHI isn't a big issue as FOSS circles make it to be.

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jsheard 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I suppose that's true, yeah. I was focusing too much on games specifically.