Question CPU as a GPU ? Is it a new thing?

[maxgraham]

I remember like 15 years ago I did 3dMark benchmark test, and there was a section of the test where the featured game (or whatever) was running purely from the CPU without the GPU, and it ran with like 1 or 2 fps. I did google at that time and forums said its totally normal, the worlds most powerful pc (at that time) could only produce 10 fps max. But nowdays I see that a single CPU without a GPU can run a modern game by itself with like 60 fps. What the hell?

Is it because the modern games programmed in a different way managing the resources, or is it because the modern CPU's got this much stronger this short period of time?

If I remember correctly at that time I had an Intel Core 2 Duo e8400, and a geforce 9600 gt card with 4 gb ram (or 8 gb i dunno). And at that time this cpu was a real deal, also the gpu was very decent

 

[kanewolf]

I remember like 15 years ago I did 3dMark benchmark test, and there was a section of the test where the featured game (or whatever) was running purely from the CPU without the GPU, and it ran with like 1 or 2 fps. I did google at that time and forums said its totally normal, the worlds most powerful pc (at that time) could only produce 10 fps max. But nowdays I see that a single CPU without a GPU can run a modern game by itself with like 60 fps. What the hell?

Is it because the modern games programmed in a different way managing the resources, or is it because the modern CPU's got this much stronger this short period of time?

If I remember correctly at that time I had an Intel Core 2 Duo e8400, and a geforce 9600 gt card with 4 gb ram (or 8 gb i dunno). And at that time this cpu was a real deal, also the gpu was very decent

The manufacturers have included the same GPU circuits, in reduced number and speed on the CPU. So there is dedicated hardware that is on-board. The term for this is integrated graphics. The performance is not as good a a GPU card which has much more dedicated high speed memory and many more processing units.

 

[CountMike]

There was never a "CPU as/instead of GPU", graphic chips were integrated in the MB. Later on there were Processors with an IGPU integrated with CPU on one chip or on a mini "Daughter board" and MB became only a conductor for video signal.

 

[TerryLaze]

The manufacturers have included the same GPU circuits, in reduced number and speed on the CPU. So there is dedicated hardware that is on-board. The term for this is integrated graphics. The performance is not as good a a GPU card which has much more dedicated high speed memory and many more processing units.

There was never a "CPU as/instead of GPU", graphic chips were integrated in the MB. Later on there were Processors with an IGPU integrated with CPU on one chip or on a mini "Daughter board" and MB became only a conductor for video signal.

He is probably talking about software rendering which was a thing back in ye olden days.
You would still need a GPU for the output but you could let the API use the CPU instead of the GPU if the GPU was much too weak or didn't got support from the game like if the game was vodoo/3dfx and you didn't have a card with that chipset you could use CPU rendering.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tn0bZcQf0E

 

[kerberos_20]

There was never a "CPU as/instead of GPU", graphic chips were integrated in the MB. Later on there were Processors with an IGPU integrated with CPU on one chip or on a mini "Daughter board" and MB became only a conductor for video signal.

when 3d gaming started, lots of peoples didnt have 3d accelerator, so software renderers were common
thats 20+ years ago

 

[CountMike]

Most of graphics is still done by SW in the CPU but at some brief time there ware 3D accelerator cards to take over 3D calculations although very soon after those were incorporated in Graphic cards.