JGjgarzik·Apr 25, 2024
Nice! I warmly encourage open-core GPU work.
Here's another: https://github.com/jbush001/NyuziProcessor
In Tiny GPU: A minimal GPU implementation in Verilogjbush001
NyuziProcessor
C2014–2024
jbush001 / NyuziProcessor
NyuziProcessor
GPGPU microprocessor architecture
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GPGPU microprocessor architecture
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| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| 2015 | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2016 | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 1 | 3 |
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
What Hacker News says
13 sourcesThere's also Nyuzi which is more GPGPU focused https://github.com/jbush001/NyuziProcessor, but the author also experimented with having it do 3D graphics.
In FuryGpu – Custom PCIe FPGA GPUif you're interested in this you might be interested in https://github.com/jbush001/NyuziProcessor
In Writing an open source GPU driver without the hardwareYou could probably layer a software implementation of the rasterization pipeline on top of a compute-focused open-source GPU architecture like Nyuzi [1]. NVIDIA has a paper showing how to do this [2].
I would expect a 2x slowdown over hardware rasterization, based on NVIDIA's work on such an approach, but this is probably fine if you're just trying to match Voodoo3 performance. And one could imagine bolting a minimal hardware rasterizer on top of Nyuzi to speed things up once the software implementation is working.
Of course, all this is going to be a lot of work, and the much quicker approach would just be to run llvmpipe on top of your favorite open-source CPU core.
[1]: https://github.com/jbush001/NyuziProcessor/
[2]: https://research.nvidia.com/publication/high-performance-sof...
In The WeeCee – Tiny Vortex86-Based DOS Gaming PCNyuzi – An Experimental Open-Source FPGA GPGPU Processor
165 points · Open discussionI'll be presenting a talk at the Chennai 9th RISC-V workshop about doing precisely this: a Libre RISC-V SoC. http://libre-riscv.org/shakti/m_class/ and yes, it is indeed as complicated as you describe.
Fortunately there are people out there who are not intimidated by the prospects of tackling such large projects, projects which in their own right are licensed by proprietary companies for enormous sums of money. DDR3 costs USD $1m minimum to license a SINGLE-USE controller and PHY. So I tracked down libre-licensed controllers and PHYs libre-riscv.org/shakti/m_class/DDR/
It turns out that there's around two or three libre-licensed controllers, and Symbiotic EDA are happy to do a libre-licensed DDR3 PHY for USD $300k, and to convert it to DDR4 for another $300k. It'll take them a year but that's fine.
Then there is SATA and PCIe (which ar
Read the rest
e not going into the Libre RISC-V SoC), by enjoy-digital: https://github.com/enjoy-digital
These are entirely libre-licensed PHYs that have been used in production ASICs.
Then there is also a USB3 Pipe implementation: you can see that enjoy-digital wrote a test for it https://github.com/enjoy-digital/daisho_usb3ipcore_test/tree...
RGMII is available... http://libre-riscv.org/shakti/m_class/RGMII/
Richard Herveille has RGB/TTL (VGA) and that can be connected externally to an SSD2828, SN75LVDS83b or its china clone NT7181, or a TFP410a, or a Chrontel CH7036 or equivalent. https://github.com/RoaLogic/vga_lcd
Interestingly whilst SD/MMC is available as libre-licensed, eMMC is not. So that has to be dealt with.
Video processing blocks are available for constructing all sorts of algorithms (without running into hardware-level patent licensing issues, because they're blocks not full algorithms) https://opencores.org/project/video_systems
3D is however really tricky, you are absolutely right, so I have a place-holder page here http://libre-riscv.org/shakti/m_class/libre_3d_gpu/ where I'm inviting anyone with expertise to step forward, to collaborate to get something done.
And yes, your comment that it's not particularly exciting in academia, and that they totally lack novelty, is spot on! SoCs with 3D and Video on which you and your kids can watch Monster School, FGeeTV, and play Minecraft, RoBlox and Neko Atsume is indeed neither academically exciting nor novel.
With the exception of the 3D part, which Jeff Bush kindly resesarched extremely well, in the form of Nyuzi, by replicating the Intel Larrabee Team's paper in which they developed a recursive rasterisation algorithm. https://github.com/jbush001/NyuziProcessor/wiki
Who the heck are you, anyway, you seem to be quite insightfully well-informed? :)
I'd recommend looking at Nyuzi https://github.com/jbush001/NyuziProcessor.
A GPU is an obvious future step, but there's a lot to be done before that.
In LowRISC – An open-source, Linux-capable System-on-a-ChipI guess you could implement GLES on top of it.
They implemented a renderer for quake maps...
https://github.com/jbush001/NyuziProcessor/tree/master/softw...
In Nyuzi: An experimental FPGA multicore GPGPU processorNyuzi: An experimental FPGA multicore GPGPU processor
88 points · Open discussionNyuzi open GPU focused on GPGPU programming: https://github.com/jbush001/NyuziProcessor
J Core is the opened version of SuperH, and thus already has good OS and compiler support: http://0pf.org/j-core.html
J Core is perhaps the main ‘competitor’ to RISC-V: they're both fully open, unencumbered, well-designed architectures suitable for both embedded devices and full systems.
In How Genode came to RISC-V