Imagination unveils IMG DXT GPU for mobile games with ray tracing

Imagination Technologies has unveiled its new IMG DXT graphics processing unit (GPU) for mobile games with ray-tracing features.

The chip is the latest in an effort to make mobile gaming more immersive with a more realistic visual experience. It has 50% more performance than the previous generation GPUs.

Kristof Beets, vice president of technology at Imagination Technologies, said in an interview with GamesBeat that the main driving force beyond GPU chip improvements is still gaming and the market continues to grow significantly.

“Quality on its own is not enough,” Beets said. “We also need to delivery enough performance for that gaming. So how do we get high enough frame rates? The problem in mobile, of course, is that it is a battery-drive product.”

Making energy-efficient chips is the answer. But it’s worth the effort as mobile gamers are expected to grow from 2.6 billion in 2022 to 3.9 billion in 2030, according to ABI Research. And more than 95% of gamers are expected to be using a mobile device by 2026.

Imagination has been on quite the treadmill. The company announced its AXT GPU series in 2019, followed by the BXT in 2020 and the CXT in 2021. Licensors launch their products in the market roughly 18 months after the announcements.

Imagination is targeting markets from mobile devices to self-driving cars. Last year, it pushed into the ray-tracing feature which had previously been the domain of high-end GPus for desktops or game consoles.

Imagination Technologies DXT GPU is bringing ray tracing to the mass market.

The DXT has 50% more performance and compute, coming in at 2.25 teraflops at FP32, 72 gigatexels per second, and 9.0 TOPS AI performance.

“We’re enabling more performance at higher density,” Beets said. “The elements are more about how to bring ray tracing to the mass market.”

The GPU has features like 2D dual-rate texturing, a RISC-V firmware processor, ASTC HDR support, and pipelined data masters. The chip will be able to make improvements in its pipeline and more. It has support for the Open Source Game Engine.

There are three members in the DXT family, ranging from 256 gigaflops to 2.25 teraflops.

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