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[PaintTinJr]

Marble Madness Arcade machine ran on the Atari System 1 hardware. Jed Margolin likely led the team that designed it. Bob Flanagan and Mark Cerny programmed the game itself.

That was the very first game to use System 1 hardware while still using TTL 7400 Series glue AFAIK, unlike later games that replaced the TTL glue with fixed LSI/ASIC.

So even though the TTL glue is equivalent to designing integrated circuits that bus snooped to provide a RAM/ROM controller, video timings, pixel shifting, etc like a very rudimentary hardwired mobo chipset, it still needed a silicon engineer of sorts with expert skills and full stack understanding to glue the system together for Marble Madness - ie Cerny. Probably not quite the same as Apple's Tim Cook Atari story of being subcontracted and getting paid from winnings of succeeding in using less than 30 something TTL gates on an early game he shared with the Atari employee, but it was expert silicon engineering work of the time IMO in both that game and Marble Madness.

 

[Felessan]

Sony developers were not bottlenecked by PCs when they created games like GOWR or H:FW, their main bottleneck was last gen consoles and even with that in mind they could make PS5 versions with support for advanced I/O (like Insomniac did with SM). There is no good excuse why they didn't.

Majority of PS5 games don't use these systems and that is sad.

As far as I understand SSD require to rewrite core engine handling streaming and you have to do it quite early in game development. GOWR and HFW are sequels, meaning they probably were less inclined on hard refactoring of engine. Insomniac probably put efforts earlier on this stuff.

Also seems like a reason why adoption takes so long, we only recently start to get games who explicitly like high speed ssd

 

[Ozriel]

Interesting, especially when they planned earlier launch (vs. PS6) from the start (at least that's what the rumors have said).

Those rumors were always nonsense, given that RDNA5 was never planned for earlier than H2 2027.

If the console was meant to come out after Magnus, I doubt it is far far off in feature set but after many console designs where they made pretty good bets I think we can give them some benefit of doubt.

They were both planned for Q4 2027

 

[Det]

Mark is basically Business Analyst of Playstation. He knows what business users (developers) wants from Playstation and he can talk with engineers to pass it and work through possible solutions.
Doesn't mean he engineer himself but as he is the one who put business requirement, he has a lot of power over chip design decision making.

And it's for best benefit for Sony if stuff that was engineered for their needs used elsewhere as it's simplify adoption.

Now I understand, Mark Cerny is like the Phil Spencer of PlayStation.
He gossips about what developers want for AMD.



You just described the Xbox's role with AMD, just make a checklist of features: "I want them all, full RDNA2, even if it's useless, marketing needs it for advertising."

it's the downplay fetish with Sony...

I just remembered that yesterday I posted the difference between Control; 45GB SX, 25GB PS5; and how people said it was because the Xbox version came with both the Xbox One and SX games in the same package... because imagine Sony doing something much better than Microsoft?

I bet it wasn't Cerny and the Sony engineering team who designed the SSD controller, they must have bought it from someone else too, right?

 

[Felessan]

Now I understand, Mark Cerny is like the Phil Spencer of PlayStation.

He gossips about what developers want for AMD.

No, he is an expert role

Do you have an experience in software development?
There are some different roles
- business users for whom software is made
- developers who actually write software
- some other roles like project management, testers etc
- and business analysts who are essentially middle-men between business and IT - they know business side enough to understand what they want. And they know IT to be able describe and negotiate with actual developers what can be done from business needs and how, given limitations (budget, available technology, time etc.)

It require some knowledge and expertise to be good and help to bring two sides with completely different views close

And Phil is a manager role who talks a lot and pretend that he is playing games too.

 

[Fess]

Man it's too bad Valve couldn't come out on time with a reasonable price I was really looking forward to seeing how the market reacted to The Steam Machine Damned AI Boom couldn't Wait a year?

Yeah, it's a little late for sure.
But everything is delayed, Steam Machine will have 1.5+ years alone in this product segment.

 

[Det]

No, he is an expert role

Do you have an experience in software development?
There are some different roles
- business users for whom software is made
- developers who actually write software
- some other roles like project management, testers etc
- and business analysts who are essentially middle-men between business and IT - they know business side enough to understand what they want. And they know IT to be able describe and negotiate with actual developers what can be done from business needs and how, given limitations (budget, available technology, time etc.)

It require some knowledge and expertise to be good and help to bring two sides with completely different views close

And Phil is a manager role who talks a lot and pretend that he is playing games too.

Man, it sounds like I'm talking to a nonsense generator.

The announcement is about co-development.
Sony customized and created the audio and SSD components for the PS5.

But somehow they did almost nothing besides provide feedback and check off features for AMD. There's no hardware team at Sony.

Sony manufactures semiconductors; it's in your cell phone. Sony was already making hardware 23 years before AMD existed, before Silicon Valley existed, Sony was one of the "big tech" companies.

 

[Boss Mog]

Whatever, I trust Cerny. I recall the PS5 not being full RDNA 2 like the Series X and also having less TFLOPS and we all know how that turned out...

 

[DeepEnigma]

Relevant quote from an earlier article:

"Big chunks of RDNA 5, or whatever AMD ends up calling it, are coming out of engineering I am doing on the project"
- Mark Cerny

Pfft, Pee Yarrrr

 

[J Required]

Mark Cerny really struck a nerve with the most active users in this thread — now they're suddenly dissecting his qualifications from their basements. Hilarious.

 

[Bojji]

 

[Felessan]

But somehow they did almost nothing besides provide feedback and check off features for AMD. There's no hardware team at Sony.

Sony manufactures semiconductors; it's in your cell phone. Sony was already making hardware 23 years before AMD existed, before Silicon Valley existed, Sony was one of the "big tech" companies.

Sony doesn't manufacture GPU
And it's clearly not a Cerny job
Being familiar with semiconductors is good and making it easier to align your business need with hardware constraints, provide not only high-level but also mid-level proposals on implementation
But actual transistor mask is done by AMD, it's their job and they, unlike Sony, have all expertise to do it for GPU

It's like I can provide business requirement what my project should do, translate it to technical specifications and even write some SQL stuff that will do those tasks. But actual implementation will be on devs side as they have more expertise than me in actual integration of features into system.

Design phase when feature set is discussed and approach to implementation is determined is also part of development, it's not like "coding" into actual transistor layout is the only phase it has.

 

[Bitstream]

There are a select few in this forum that refuse to acknowledge Mark Cerny's impact on chip design or advancements in console engineering. Anything remotely positive mentioned about him results in strawman arguments such as suggesting that there's no way he's in the AMD labs etching the lithograph onto the silicon sheets.

Those same people are typically the first to jump in and glaze nvidia for any minor announcement.

At this point I think the biggest reason these guys are shitting on Mark is because he doesn't have a leather jacket.

 

[PropellerEar]

Really? Maybe I don't remember everything. I just remember Florian from foss patents talking extensively about how Google and Apple would need to pay MS for their patents now and there was a little war of patent trolling between the three before it all settled. He was going on about how they make more money from Android devices than Google and Windows phone. Here is the press release from MS mentioning the patents so you're right:

Microsoft to acquire Nokia’s devices & services business, license Nokia’s patents and mapping services - Source

REDMOND, Washington and ESPOO, Finland – Sept. 3, 2013 – Microsoft Corporation and Nokia Corporation today announced that the Boards of Directors for both companies have decided to enter into a transaction whereby Microsoft will purchase substantially all of Nokia’s Devices & Services business...

news.microsoft.com

Yeah we know Kingsolorobert can't be trusted.

Nokia is aggressively using their parents still in the mobile space, almost all the phone manufacturers still need to pay Nokia for licensing their patents.

Latest one I know is they stopped e.g Asus laptops on entrenching on their patents on Hevc.

Public statement to patent dispute with Nokia

Discover the latest ASUS news, press releases, and global updates at the official ASUS Pressroom. Explore now! Visit press.asus.com

share.google

 

[J Required]

There are a select few in this forum that refuse to acknowledge Mark Cerny's impact on chip design or advancements in console engineering. Anything remotely positive mentioned about him results in strawman arguments such as suggesting that there's no way he's in the AMD labs etching the lithograph onto the silicon sheets.

Beautifully worded.

 

[DeepEnigma]

At this point I think the biggest reason these guys are shitting on Mark is because he doesn't have a leather jacket.

 

[RoboFu]

umm it doesn't need to? it will have PSSR.

 

[DeepEnigma]

No one knows when DRAM/NAND prices will go down and by how much. They could end up delaying by 2 years for just a ~$50 BOM reduction which is not worth it.

So why would anyone delay then with this taken into account?

Edit: saw this one.

Yeah, but I don't think it will be delayed

 

[mckmas8808]

Pfft, Pee Yarrrr

LOL!!!!! It's as if they think Mark Cerny is some mascot for Playstation. Like he isn't the lead architect for Playstation hardware for about 15 years now.

 

[mckmas8808]

A lot of people here seem to think Mark Cerny is a silicon engineer. No he doesn't actually develop the ML blocks, or the new RT cores or anything like that, he is the System Architect for PlayStation. Yes, he has a lot of influence over where RDNA gets developed because he defines the performance targets and architecture philosophy that they need, but the actual chip design is done by engineering teams at AMD, led by people like Mike Mantor. Mark is the lead visionary, not the actual guy making and designing the chips. Mark Cerny is extremely good at what he does, but is still fundamentally limited by what AMD can design based on what he wants.

Who here really thinks Mark Cerny was literally building the freaking GPUs?! Come on guys lets not play stupid here. There's zero reason to downplay his role in all of this. Everything you said in bold is what we all know about Mark Cerny. Nothing more/Nothing less.

 

[Det]

Sony doesn't manufacture GPU
And it's clearly not a Cerny job
Being familiar with semiconductors is good and making it easier to align your business need with hardware constraints, provide not only high-level but also mid-level proposals on implementation
But actual transistor mask is done by AMD, it's their job and they, unlike Sony, have all expertise to do it for GPU

It's like I can provide business requirement what my project should do, translate it to technical specifications and even write some SQL stuff that will do those tasks. But actual implementation will be on devs side as they have more expertise than me in actual integration of features into system.

Design phase when feature set is discussed and approach to implementation is determined is also part of development, it's not like "coding" into actual transistor layout is the only phase it has.

Relevant quote from an earlier article:

"Big chunks of RDNA 5, or whatever AMD ends up calling it, are coming out of engineering I am doing on the project"
- Mark Cerny

 

[DeepEnigma]

Who here really thinks Mark Cerny was literally building the freaking GPUs?! Come on guys lets not play stupid here. There's zero reason to downplay his role in all of this. Everything you said in bold is what we all know about Mark Cerny. Nothing more/Nothing less.

People have deduced this into retarded levels in a mere 2 pages, lol.

 

[Zathalus]

Who here really thinks Mark Cerny was literally building the freaking GPUs?! Come on guys lets not play stupid here. There's zero reason to downplay his role in all of this. Everything you said in bold is what we all know about Mark Cerny. Nothing more/Nothing less.

Not literally building the GPUs but a fair few here think he is the one actually designing the radiance cores or the new shader engines or whatever. That's not what his role is.

And I'm not downplaying his actual role. Let me quote some things I actually said:

"he defines the performance targets and architecture philosophy"

"Mark is the lead visionary"

"Mark Cerny is extremely good at what he does"

I'm not sure how anyone can read that and assume I'm downplaying his role. I was clarifying it.

 

[mckmas8808]

Not literally building the GPUs but a fair few here think he is the one actually designing the radiance cores or the new shader engines or whatever. That's not what his role is.

And I'm not downplaying his actual role. Let me quote some things I actually said:

"he defines the performance targets and architecture philosophy"

"Mark is the lead visionary"

"Mark Cerny is extremely good at what he does"

I'm not sure how anyone can read that and assume I'm downplaying his role. I was clarifying it.

But who here thinks Cerny is literally designing the radiance cores? We know what he does. You said it perfectly....

"Mark is the lead visionary"
"he defines the performance targets and architecture philosophy"


That's what all of us think about Mark Cerny. Maybe the point some are making is that Sony has someone that they've tasked to do that stuff because they are a hardware company first and foremost and can accomplish things with AMD that other companies like a Nintendo or Microsoft wouldn't dare do in their gaming systems.

But that's mainly due to Sony being a hardware company first. Their Japanese engineers are very talented too.

 

[DeepEnigma]

But who here thinks Cerny is literally designing the radiance cores? We know what he does. You said it perfectly....

"Mark is the lead visionary"
"he defines the performance targets and architecture philosophy"


That's what all of us think about Mark Cerny. Maybe the point some are making is that Sony has someone that they've tasked to do that stuff because they are a hardware company first and foremost and can accomplish things with AMD that other companies like a Nintendo or Microsoft wouldn't dare do in their gaming systems.

But that's mainly due to Sony being a hardware company first. Their Japanese engineers are very talented too.

They're the imaging sensor leader which said sensors are utilized and needed in the silicon world.

Let's ask the clankers (which also use their sensors):

---

Yes, Sony Semiconductor Solutions imaging sensors are used in the manufacturing process of CPU/GPU silicon, specifically for high-precision industrial inspection. These sensors enable automated, high-speed monitoring of wafer manufacturing, including pattern defects, contamination, and positioning, ensuring reliability in semiconductor production.
www.sony-semicon.com +2
How Sony Sensors Support Silicon Fabrication:

• Precision Inspections: Sony's Pregius™ global shutter sensors detect minute contamination and pattern defects on silicon wafers.
• Wafer Bonding & Assembly: Cameras using these sensors assist in the precise positioning of wafers during the assembly process.
• Resist Coating Monitoring: Specialized cameras monitor the interior of nozzles during the application of photoresist to wafers.
• SWIR Technology: SWIR-band light sensors (Short Wavelength Infra-Red) are used to inspect internal defects within semiconductors and look throughpackaging materials.
  www.sony-semicon.com +3

These sensors play a critical role in the "machine vision" systems that automate and ensure the yield of advanced semiconductor manufacturing.

---

 

[Felessan]

.

Designing features and do their silicon implementation is two fucking different things - what's so hard to understand in it?
RDNA(5) itself is not a name of chip, it's a name of architecture that consists of certain set of features those later implemented into silicon.

 

[mckmas8808]

They're the imaging sensor leader which said sensors are utilized and needed in the silicon world.

Let's ask the clankers (which also use their sensors):

---

Yes, Sony Semiconductor Solutions imaging sensors are used in the manufacturing process of CPU/GPU silicon, specifically for high-precision industrial inspection. These sensors enable automated, high-speed monitoring of wafer manufacturing, including pattern defects, contamination, and positioning, ensuring reliability in semiconductor production.
www.sony-semicon.com +2
How Sony Sensors Support Silicon Fabrication:

• Precision Inspections: Sony's Pregius™ global shutter sensors detect minute contamination and pattern defects on silicon wafers.
• Wafer Bonding & Assembly: Cameras using these sensors assist in the precise positioning of wafers during the assembly process.
• Resist Coating Monitoring: Specialized cameras monitor the interior of nozzles during the application of photoresist to wafers.
• SWIR Technology: SWIR-band light sensors (Short Wavelength Infra-Red) are used to inspect internal defects within semiconductors and look throughpackaging materials.
  www.sony-semicon.com +3

These sensors play a critical role in the "machine vision" systems that automate and ensure the yield of advanced semiconductor manufacturing.

---

OMG.....even better lol. They are so deeply embedded in CPU and GPU creation that this all makes sense to "Sony" (not just Playstation) to have a guy like Cerny to do what he does. It's within Sony's business interest. I'm sure after Mark gets off the phone with an engineer at AMD in English, he then gets on the phone with a Sony engineer and speaks to them in Japanese. And then an hour later he speaking to European game developers to get feedback about these hardware designs to understand what they need and don't need and why. This works because Mark also literally made videogames earlier in his career.

I'm just lost why some want to downplay his presence. This is VERY unique to have a guy like Mark Cerny able to do this. To have someone that has this level of hardware and software intelligence is incredible.

 

[Bojji]

Who here really thinks Mark Cerny was literally building the freaking GPUs?! Come on guys lets not play stupid here. There's zero reason to downplay his role in all of this. Everything you said in bold is what we all know about Mark Cerny. Nothing more/Nothing less.

You would be surprised. Check out some posters on previous pages.

Without knowing otherwise you would think Mark Cerny is the lead GPU engineer at AMD.

 

[The_Mike]

kinda ot, but i wish they'd just make a portable ps5 and ride this gen out a while

Get a steam deck.

It can play the majority of the same games.

 

[Light_Crusader25]

the issue being how they had to work around the high clocks they had to use in order to make it competitive.

insane heatsink size, liquid metal, huge power draw difference (50+ watts at points compared to Series X to hit the same performance)

Ended up costing them much less to produce, for almost identical results. That is the very definition of a win.

 

[videogamedude]

Get a steam deck.

It can play the majority of the same games.

eh i have a gaming laptop already if i want to suffer tinkertown

i want to play soros, and i want to play returnal on haptic without being tethered to usb

 

[kevboard]

Ended up costing them much less to produce, for almost idential results. That is the very definition of a win.

that reduced cost for the SoC was probably eaten up by the unnecessarily overengineered and expensive SSD

 

[DeepEnigma]

that reduced cost for the SoC was probably eaten up by the unnecessarily overengineered and expensive SSD

Let's ask the clankers:

---

Based on manufacturing analyses from the time of its release, the SSD in the PlayStation 5 was considered a relatively cost-effective component for Sony to procure compared to its retail performance value, though it was still a major contributor to the total console cost.

• Production Cost: Estimates in 2020 indicated that the custom 825GB SSD, combined with other memory, accounted for a significant portion of the $450 total bill of materials (BOM), but it was not the sole expensive component.
• Custom Design Savings: While the SSD is highly customized for speed (custom controller, high bandwidth), Sony's ability to manufacture and procure these in massive quantities helped lower costs.
• Market Value vs. Cost: At launch, a comparable PCIe 4.0 SSD in the open market was much more expensive than what the component actually cost Sony to include inside the machine.
• Performance vs. Price: Technical analyses suggested that the custom SSD provided high-end performance (5.5GB/s+) that, at the time, would have been very expensive to buy separately, making its inclusion efficient for Sony's $499.99 retail price point.

Note: The cost of storage components, including NAND flash memory, has fluctuated since the PS5 launch, with recent, 2026-era market prices for high-speed drives sometimes increasing, though not impacting the original manufacturing cost.

---

---

 

[PaintTinJr]

But who here thinks Cerny is literally designing the radiance cores? We know what he does. You said it perfectly....

"Mark is the lead visionary"
"he defines the performance targets and architecture philosophy"


That's what all of us think about Mark Cerny. Maybe the point some are making is that Sony has someone that they've tasked to do that stuff because they are a hardware company first and foremost and can accomplish things with AMD that other companies like a Nintendo or Microsoft wouldn't dare do in their gaming systems.

But that's mainly due to Sony being a hardware company first. Their Japanese engineers are very talented too.

The Amethyst video info tells us Mark is profiling performance on the Radiance Cores/Neural Arrays - with real software examples he'll have written himself - while they are still just theoretical silicon in a software simulator. That is the gist of his own words he used in the video.

For most people here that didn't take up the opportunity to try such a simulator at the release of the IBM Cell BE SDK back in ~ Nov 2005 - to run Cell software very, very slowly in a simulator that could be installed on Intel Core2Duo x64 - that probably doesn't mean much, but the purpose of what Mark is doing with the Amethyst virtual silicon is to meaningfully understand how well it is delivering on its target and to profile it specifically against GPU clock and memory clock, result in engineering feedback, rather than high level "yeah it's great!" type feedback.

 

[mckmas8808]

The Amethyst video info tells us Mark is profiling performance on the Radiance Cores/Neural Arrays - with real software examples he'll have written himself - while they are still just theoretical silicon in a software simulator. That is the gist of his own words he used in the video.

For most people here that didn't take up the opportunity to try such a simulator at the release of the IBM Cell BE SDK back in ~ Nov 2005 - to run Cell software very, very slowly in a simulator that could be installed on Intel Core2Duo x64 - that probably doesn't mean much, but the purpose of what Mark is doing with the Amethyst virtual silicon is to meaningfully understand how well it is delivering on its target and to profile it specifically against GPU clock and memory clock, result in engineering feedback, rather than high level "yeah it's great!" type feedback.

Exactly!!! Dude isn't just giving AMD a checklist and then saying report back to me with your results. I'm at a lost as to why some are needing to turn Cerny into somebody he's not.

 

[Light_Crusader25]

that reduced cost for the SoC was probably eaten up by the unnecessarily overengineered and expensive SSD

No. They were breaking even/making a small profit at a time when Xbox was losing 100-200 dollars per console. This is a matter of public record.

 

[Magic Carpet]

AMD design the Crayon Colors (Hey we can make all these colors)
Mark Cerny is the Teacher who puts together the list of school supplies. (You don't need all these colors, just the ones on this list)
Pennsylvania is the TSMC of making Crayons and putting all the right colors in the boxes.
Developers are the Kindergartners who draw the scribbled pics.
Neogaf is the Fridge where all the pics get posted.

PC are the 1st graders with the bigger box of crayons. But they still have to color in the same pics as the Kindergartners.

 

[PropellerEar]

 

[rkofan87]

Yeah, but I don't think it will be delayed

even if it's not delayed not many people will buy one only the ultra rich
the only way to get people to buy in early is they get PS3 backwards compatibility up and running

 

[mayham2199]

Count the laugh emoji and fire reactions in these next gen threads. That'll tell you everything.

Imagine when Steam Machine comes out too and behaves just like a console and can play both PlayStation and Xbox games. That'll be fun.

It wont matter because it can't play several other big MP games.

 

[mayham2199]

even if it's not delayed not many people will buy one only the ultra rich
the only way to get people to buy in early is they get PS3 backwards compatibility up and running

lol you guys think BC is way more important than it really is. Xbox tried to hype that shit up and no one cared. We are being flooded by brand new games every day and you think people are dying to go back and play shit from the PS3 days?

 

[Bernardougf]

lol you guys think BC is way more important than it really is. Xbox tried to hype that shit up and no one cared. We are being flooded by brand new games every day and you think people are dying to go back and play shit from the PS3 days?

Yeah this love for BC as something huge for consoles always eluded me.

 

[kevboard]

Let's ask the clankers:

no, thank you...

 

[onQ123]

even if it's not delayed not many people will buy one only the ultra rich
the only way to get people to buy in early is they get PS3 backwards compatibility up and running

 

[Three]

This. The lead hardware engineer for the PS3, PS4, and PS5 was Ito Masayasu, who retired a few years back. Cerny is the system architect, not engineer and there is an important distinction between the two.

Does this distinction matter to the topic though?

The system architect would have more input on RDNA (UDNA) than Ito Masayasu as the lead hardware engineer. So I'm not sure why he is being brought up along with that distinction other than to maybe dismiss Mark's input on RDNA design.

Nobody really said there isn't a bigger team of very talented people at Sony or AMD working on these products. They're just talking about Cerny's RDNA design influence. With that in mind did Ito really design or come up with concepts for AMD SoC features even before his retirement in 2023? I don't believe he did.

From what I understand Ito was ultimately the lead hardware engineer but he wasn't designing/influencing the SoC features outside an overall business sense with his team. So cost/TDP, that sort of thing. Ito was more about the hardware product. the physical product design of the actual console around that TDP, so cooling, target BOM cost, accessories, OS, etc. He oversaw the entire product but people under him like Cerny would be the ones doing the SoC design concepts and features with AMD engineers, the AMD engineers who likely have more SoC knowledge than both.

So Ito absolutely would have influence in some sense of choosing broader direction for the PlayStation console but I don't believe he was sitting down and coming up with SoC concepts and ideas to bring to AMD engineers. Those sort of patents at Sony are under Marks name not Ito. Ito was an executive with broader business goals.

 

[Fess]

It wont matter because it can't play several other big MP games.

Lots of people don't care about those games. But if you do I'm pretty sure you can install Windows on a separate partition for those games.

 

[Three]

Not literally building the GPUs but a fair few here think he is the one actually designing the radiance cores or the new shader engines or whatever. That's not what his role is.

Define "designing" here because a lot of people seem hellbent on semantics for no apparent reason it seems. If by "designing" you mean creating the die, then no. If by "designing" you mean coming up with the idea for radiance cores, did he not play a large part?

From the description of radiance cores:

That sounds exactly like Cerny's 2020 patent:

US11704859B2 - System and method for accelerated ray tracing - Google Patents

A graphics processing unit (GPU) includes one or more processor cores adapted to execute a software-implemented shader program, and one or more hardware-implemented ray tracing units (RTU) adapted to traverse an acceleration structure to calculate intersections of rays with bounding volumes and...

patents.google.com

Abstract from the patent:

"A graphics processing unit (GPU) includes one or more processor cores adapted to execute a software-implemented shader program, and one or more hardware-implemented ray tracing units (RTU) adapted to traverse an acceleration structure to calculate intersections of rays with bounding volumes and graphics primitives. The RTU implements traversal logic to traverse the acceleration structure, stack management, and other tasks to relieve burden on the shader, communicating intersections to the shader which then calculates whether the intersection hit a transparent or opaque portion of the object intersected. Thus, one or more processing cores within the GPU perform accelerated ray tracing by offloading aspects of processing to the RTU, which traverses the acceleration structure within which the 3D environment is represented."

There is a reason why AMD and Sony have this announced deep partnership and xbox dont. Doesn't stop xbox implementing the standard AT2 chiplet and both Sony and AMD benefiting.
It's also one of the reasons you see nvidia fanboys throwing so much vitriol, especially in that Magnus thread.

 

[Zathalus]

Define "designing" here because a lot of people seem hellbent on semantics for no apparent reason it seems. If by "designing" you mean creating the die, then no. If by "designing" you mean coming up with the idea for radiance cores, did he not play a large part?

From the description of radiance cores:

That sounds exactly like Cerny's 2020 patent:

US11704859B2 - System and method for accelerated ray tracing - Google Patents

A graphics processing unit (GPU) includes one or more processor cores adapted to execute a software-implemented shader program, and one or more hardware-implemented ray tracing units (RTU) adapted to traverse an acceleration structure to calculate intersections of rays with bounding volumes and...

patents.google.com

Abstract from the patent:

"A graphics processing unit (GPU) includes one or more processor cores adapted to execute a software-implemented shader program, and one or more hardware-implemented ray tracing units (RTU) adapted to traverse an acceleration structure to calculate intersections of rays with bounding volumes and graphics primitives. The RTU implements traversal logic to traverse the acceleration structure, stack management, and other tasks to relieve burden on the shader, communicating intersections to the shader which then calculates whether the intersection hit a transparent or opaque portion of the object intersected. Thus, one or more processing cores within the GPU perform accelerated ray tracing by offloading aspects of processing to the RTU, which traverses the acceleration structure within which the 3D environment is represented."

There is a reason why AMD and Sony have this announced deep partnership and xbox dont. Doesn't stop xbox implementing the standard AT2 chiplet and both Sony and AMD benefiting.
It's also one of the reasons you see nvidia fanboys throwing so much vitriol, especially in that Magnus thread.

Because he is a systems architect? Like I said he defines the performance targets and architecture philosophy that they need, but the actual chip design is done by engineering teams at AMD. Having a patent like this does not mean Cerny "designed the GPU," but it does mean he contributed ideas that influence GPU behavior. AMD also has quite a number of patents that describe similar (much more actually, almost three dozen) RT acceleration:



So yes, he certainly contributed, extensively so in the custom PS6 SoC, but laying all of these advancements done by AMD at his feet completely ignores the extremely clever people at AMD.

 

[Three]

Because he is a systems architect? Like I said he defines the performance targets and architecture philosophy that they need, but the actual chip design is done by engineering teams at AMD. Having a patent like this does not mean Cerny "designed the GPU," but it does mean he contributed ideas that influence GPU behavior. AMD also has quite a number of patents that describe similar (much more actually, almost three dozen) RT acceleration:



So yes, he certainly contributed, extensively so in the custom PS6 SoC, but laying all of these advancements done by AMD at his feet completely ignores the extremely clever people at AMD.

But what does being labelled "system architect" change? He has a patent that describes radiance cores exactly. Meaning when he says:

"Big chunks of RDNA 5, or whatever AMD ends up calling it, are coming out of engineering I am doing on the project"
- Mark Cerny

He means it. It's provable with that patent that he is not just "asking for stuff". What does him being called a 'system architect' instead of "SoC engineer" change in that context?
You have spammed me with patents but none of them decribe the idea of radiance cores exactly. Nobody was "ignoring the extremely clever people" at AMD either or Ito. They just said Mark Cerny had a part in RDNA5. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

[Cyborg]

This thread reminds me of the talk about PS5/Xbox Series. There was a dude here (or on Era) that claimd he saw a game (was nothing he has seen before) with fog, bridges etc. He claimed to know a lot but when pushed he couldnt handle the presure and left with an ''emotional'' note.

Come on you remember this guy