Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

As a mobile phone hardware enthusiast who used to be obsessed with brushing and unlocking BootLoader locks to obtain root for overclocking, recently seeing what happened in the "machine circle" made me have once again the "best part of my brain" when I heard that mobile phones can overclock like computers.

The light pursuit technology has been devolved to the mobile terminal, and it is really exciting to think that the light and shadow effect on the mobile phone can be comparable to that of PC in the future.

The light pursuit performance of shooting games such as Bright memory can greatly improve the texture and reality of the picture: if Nvidia does not mention "light pursuit", then I only think that these two top mobile chip manufacturers are still suspected of squeezing toothpaste on the latest flagship mobile platform, which is nothing more than the performance enhancement brought about by changes in processor architecture and improved hardware specifications. At the same time, there are two platitudes about image quality enhancement, overall power consumption optimization and so on.

But from the two conferences as a whole, it is different.

Whether MediaTek or Qualcomm, "Light pursuit" attracted enough attention at these two press conferences.

In terms of MediaTek, during the press conference for more than an hour, not only did it use more than 10 minutes to introduce the light pursuit technology in detail, but also after that, the relevant person in charge also made a joint research and development explanation with Tencent's manufacturer through the realization of the light pursuit technology in the game "Dark area Breakthrough"; and Qualcomm, a day later, took the light pursuit technology as a "skill point" to improve the game, and succeeded in getting out of the circle with the help of "upstream cold".

Picture source: MediaTek's optical pursuit technology has attracted unprecedented attention and attention from MediaTek and Qualcomm.

Of course, for a more comprehensive interpretation of the two mobile chip manufacturers in light pursuit technology, product play has successively written two articles, "in order to break the circle of mobile game picture quality, MediaTek Tianji 9200 tells the flagship" core "story and" the second generation Snapdragon 8, which is fully integrated into AI, can it become the "best solution" for mobile phones in the future? "with a detailed interpretation, interested friends can learn about the applications of the two companies in light pursuit technology.

Personally, I highly agree that upstream manufacturers will bring "light pursuit" technology popularity to mass mobile users through new technologies. However, after a detailed understanding of light pursuit technology, new problems have also arisen. Is it really necessary to "light pursuit" on mobile phones?

First of all, to give you a shot, mobile light pursuit to achieve "pure light pursuit" is not realistic.

First, let's take a look at the "light pursuit" technology, which is called Ray Tracing in English, which is used in graphics rendering to determine whether different elements are visible or invisible. It uses the reversibility of light to calculate in reverse. In the most basic version of Ray Casting, it emits a virtual ray from the main angle of view to the screen, and then passes through the screen to the rendered scene. At this time, the scene will be divided into countless triangles. When these rays reach the surface of the divided triangle, it is necessary to calculate reflection, refraction, absorption and so on according to the surface properties of the triangle. Record the whole scene information, and then combine the light source information to calculate the lighting effect.

Light pursuit principle source: the network through several times the light reflection to make the reflected object form a more real effect, this is the principle of light pursuit technology.

In the actual game scene, there will be a large number of light reflection and refraction, which is a great test for the processor GPU, so many games are not achieved through "pure light pursuit", but through rasterization rendering to achieve relatively realistic lighting effect.

To put it simply, it first uses a unit called a rasterizer to calculate the projection of the disassembled triangles in the scene on the screen space, selects which pixels need to be rendered, and then renders these pixels.

However, whether it is pure light pursuit technology or rasterized rendering, there are some limitations in dealing with the light and shadow effects in the game.

For example, although the former can achieve the most real light source changes, but because of the need for a large number of other light "interference" and the need for a large number of analysis and calculation, for GPU performance is a big test. Although the latter brings less pressure to the GPU than the pure light pursuit technology, it is limited by the principle, if you want to achieve a more high-order and lifelike light path, you need complex and cumbersome algorithms, and the effect is that the static lighting effect is very good, but a move will appear dull, light leakage and other unreal light and shadow.

There is not much difference between turning on light pursuit and turning off light pursuit in this kind of games: Chinese Paladin 7, so the vast majority of games use "hybrid rendering", that is, light pursuit and rasterization rendering work at the same time, so that there can be light changes in real objects and reduce GPU pressure.

In this way, the light pursuit solution on the PC side has also been "transplanted" to the mobile end. For example, at the 21-year OPPO developer Conference, OPPO also announced the light pursuit plan, which is exactly the same as the PC side from the actual announced light pursuit effect, and according to the official introduction of OPPO, this rendering is not pure light pursuit computing, but mixed rendering.

In the initial scene, ColorOS uses rasterization to complete the overall rendering, and then uses light pursuit to generate real shadows and real reflections of special materials such as water surface, glass and metal, which can not only show the light pursuit effect in the most obvious place, but also greatly reduce the amount of light pursuit computation.

Image source: from this point of view of OPPO, even if the upstream two manufacturers and mobile phone manufacturers have made hardware and software preparations for light pursuit, if you really want to achieve "light pursuit" freedom, the best policy is to comprehensively consider the performance of the device and use hybrid rendering.

All this is considered from the starting point of processor performance and power consumption. Light pursuit technology is actually a complex light and shadow system, which contains a lot of technologies, and "devolving" to the mobile end is only a few of the most classic effects. such as soft shadow, specular reflection, refraction, but for the current mobile games, it is enough to improve the picture.

Of course, no matter whether it is PC or mobile, even if the realization of "light pursuit" brings excellent picture performance, we should also be wary of all kinds of user experience problems brought about by light pursuit.

For example, for PC, the first thing you have to face after turning on optical tracking is the substantial reduction in the number of frames and the problem of power consumption, but in fact, for graphics cards that can turn on the effect of optical tracking, DLSS 2.0 and 3.0 technology can be used to "make up for" the decline in the number of frames caused by optical tracking.

Figure source: Nvidia is very complex on the mobile side, but it is not without a solution. MediaTek has a relatively complete response: mobile GPU efficiency program, which includes three aspects: one is to directly improve the performance of CPU and GPU through process and process optimization, and the other is to increase the popularity of 64-bit applications to better play the core performance of CPU, while working closely with Vulkan in GPU. Carry on the deep optimization from the driver, and improve the picture quality performance through the algorithm, and the third is to take advantage of the performance and energy efficiency advantages brought by the excellent game engine to cooperate more deeply with ecological partners like Tencent to optimize the load for the game.

This is also the mobile end in the lack of DLSS this use of AI "stable frame" technology to the game picture quality, running stability "compensation".

If the game already supports light pursuit and can run at full frames of 60 frames, can it really bring a good experience for players?

The answer is not directional either.

It depends on which games the "light chase" technology is applied to. Take PC as an example, it is not difficult to find a phenomenon in the supporting light-chasing games published by Nvidia. Most of these games are based on single-player plots, with action and racing categories. These games pay great attention to story narrative coherence and picture quality, and pursue the "sense of immersion" that players bring. The flexible shadow, dynamic reflection, global illumination and ambient light masking technology provided by light pursuit technology can enhance the reality of the whole picture and bring players an immersive experience. If you are playing VR games, the sense of immersion in light pursuit is self-evident.

Mobile light has a layout source: on the network, for multiplayer competitive games, the picture is not the focus of players' attention, fluency and low delay are the important factors that determine the competitive game experience. The vast majority of multiplayer online players will minimize the various light and shadow effects and particle effects of the image visual experience, for fear of interfering with visual judgment.

For domestic mobile games, free download plus multiplayer online is the main form of games, basic mobile games and online games can be directly equated. Whether it is a MOBA type game or a main view shooting game, key information such as map and blood endurance need to be displayed in the interface, coupled with the limitation of the screen size of the phone itself, the detail improvement brought by light pursuit is often easily ignored in the information processing process of dynamic games.

If shooting mobile games catch up, it may affect the source of the game experience: play lzh call of Duty War Zone key map to take the recently tested "call of Duty: war Zone" mobile game, the picture has been occupied by a variety of virtual keys, coupled with the limited screen size, if you add the light pursuit effect, it is bound to affect the screen display, and then affect the enemy position judgment, which is also the impact of turning on light pursuit on the screen.

Finally, let's go back to the core question of what is the use of light pursuit technology.

For upstream chip makers, the problem seems clear enough. To put it simply, it is through in-depth cooperation with game manufacturers to improve the performance of game picture quality, which seems to be the most important role for the mobile technology of light pursuit. Apart from games, is there no opportunity for "talent display" in pursuit technology alone?

3D dynamic real-time interactive wallpaper source: before OPPO, some manufacturers have officially launched light-chasing 3D dynamic real-time interactive wallpaper. This wallpaper product is the first time to implement ray tracing technology on the mobile phone. However, for most users, it does not seem to be more practical for the game screen. It is said that in the future, light pursuit will not only cover the game, but also bring huge commercial value to image filters, AR and other fields.

However, from the point of view of the actual landing of mobile light and the degree of application support, I think it is only the announcement of the light pursuit of mobile phone manufacturers in advance.

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: non-objective Laboratory (ID:zhinan617).

Welcome to subscribe "Shulou Technology Information " to get latest news, interesting things and hot topics in the IT industry, and controls the hottest and latest Internet news, technology news and IT industry trends.