Top all-time · #2403
Imagination
Company blog · imgtec.com/bloghardwaresystems
Imagination is the company blog at imgtec.com, writing about hardware and systems. Since 2012, 30 different Hacker News readers have linked it 38 times, most often “Imagination Technologies and Apple Sign New Agreement”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-19, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (18) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Imagination Technologies' site for PowerVR GPU and ray-tracing material, including posts on Vulkan multithreading and ray-traced shadows. Some links point to job listings.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 18 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Discover Imagination’s market-leading GPU IP for graphics, edge AI and compute. Efficient, programmable, and optimised to be your solution.
Most-linked posts?
- Imagination Technologies and Apple Sign New Agreement4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2020-01-02
- /legacy-gpu-cores/ray-tracing/3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2018-03-19
- Innosilicon selects Imagination’s new BXT Multi-Core GPU IP for cloud computing2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-10-14
What Hacker News says?
Imagination Technologies – CPU Performance Modelling Engineer – VISA – REMOTE / WFH now, ONSITE @ HQ in Kings Langley, UK later The CPU modelling team are looking for a low level software or embedded systems engineer who can design and deliver cycle-approximate functional and performance models of the CPU. These models are used for performance analysis, early design exploration, hardware verification and inclusion w…
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Who is hiring? (August 2020)”Submitted Discussions with Apple regarding license agreement as a story · 254 points
HN discussion> It makes no sense to judge the quality of an API by the power of the available hardware it might be running on. I didn't make any such judgement or even mention VR a single time! But, looking at the points you've raised, I can say with confidence that Vulkan has been designed, taking into considering these issues. Vulkan has been carefully engineered from the ground up not to alienate tile-based renderer hardware.…
Comment linking /blog/tiling-positive-or-how-vulkan-maps-to-powervr-gpus/
on “Apple proposes new web 3D graphics API”Submitted MIPSfpga 2.0: A CPU architecture course that’s different from the rest as a story · 71 points
HN discussionWhy do you think they don't have a grant? https://www.imgtec.com/news/press-release/imagination-and-ap...
Comment linking /news/press-release/imagination-and-apple-sign-new-agreement/
on “Apple, ARM, and Intel”Submitted Loongson – The Intel and AMD alternative (LoongBT runs x86 code) as a story · 16 points
HN discussionThis is changing very rapidly with the introduction of the low-level APIs like Vulkan and DX12 that were designed to scale on multicore systems. On those titles we've been seeing much better use of multi core resources than we saw on previous generations [0][1] [0] http://www.pcworld.com/article/3039552/hardware/tested-how-m... [1] https://imgtec.com/blog/vulkan-scaling-to-multiple-threads/
Comment linking /blog/vulkan-scaling-to-multiple-threads/
on ““CPUs are optimized for video games””Submitted A guide to IoT processors as a story · 16 points
HN discussionIn the realtime performance vs developer time tradeoff, the magnitudes are important... and also, their value . For a long time, games pushed the graphics envelope, but that doesn't seem the case any more. So perhaps that's less important today, and GPUs have overshot gamer needs. OTOH, development costs of AAA games are incredibly high. with larger worlds at higher res. Even worse at 4K. So the question of the magn…
Comment linking /legacy-gpu-cores/ray-tracing/
on “Announcing Microsoft DirectX Raytracing”Submitted Imagination's New PowerVR Furian GPU Architecture as a story · 6 points
HN discussionAnd it's awesome. [1] Getting shadows right for the specifics of a game is a nightmare; balancing shadow acne and performance. Just being able to do one-size-fits-all shadows on desktops would be a major step forward. [1]: https://www.imgtec.com/blog/ray-traced-shadows-vs-cascaded-s...
Comment linking /blog/ray-traced-shadows-vs-cascaded-shadow-maps/
on “Announcing Microsoft DirectX Raytracing”Submitted ImgTec to compete with Nvidia/AMD again with discrete GPUs for desktop and cloud as a story · 3 points
HN discussionImagination and OTOY also experimented with hardware raytracing on mobile: https://www.imgtec.com/legacy-gpu-cores/ray-tracing/
Comment linking /legacy-gpu-cores/ray-tracing/
on “Announcing Microsoft DirectX Raytracing”Submitted Vulkan Synchronization as a story · 3 points
HN discussionhttps://imgtec.com/powervr/ray-tracing/
Comment linking /powervr/ray-tracing/
on “A minimal raytracer”Submitted A look at the Apple silicon Macs' graphics architecture: Tile-based rendering as a story · 3 points
HN discussionIt's not the world's first ray-tracing GPU. Imagination Technologies had one ages ago. https://www.imgtec.com/legacy-gpu-cores/ray-tracing/
Comment linking /legacy-gpu-cores/ray-tracing/
on “Nvidia Unveils Quadro RTX, a Raytracing GPU”Submitted Imagination Technologies and Apple Sign New Agreement as a story · 3 points
HN discussionApple signed a new licensing agreement with Imagination Technologies in January of this year. I suspect there was a major litigation threat somewhere behind that. https://www.imgtec.com/news/press-release/imagination-and-ap...
Comment linking /news/press-release/imagination-and-apple-sign-new-agreement/
on “Apple WWDC Keynote”Submitted PowerVR Series7XT achieve up to 4x performance increase for vision applications as a story · 3 points
HN discussion> Why doesn't GPU hardware do native path tracing now? The PowerVR guys are working on it now that they bought https://www.caustic.com/ http://www.imgtec.com/powervr/powervr_openrl_raytracing_tech... > Whoever made this brigade 3 thing, I wish nvidia or ATI would hire him Otoy hired him instead http://render.otoy.com/ http://raytracey.blogspot.com/
Comment linking /powervr/powervr_openrl_raytracing_technology.asp
on “WebGL raytraced eye”Submitted Apple dispute resolution procedure and planned sale of MIPS and Ensigma as a story · 2 points
HN discussionHave you heard of PowerVR's raytracing chip? http://www.imgtec.com/powervr/raytracing.asp
Comment linking /powervr/raytracing.asp
on “The Tungsten Renderer”Submitted The importance of fine-grained GPU preemption support for VR as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSigh. >Later, with the A11, previously licensed PowerVR GPUs were also replaced with in-house designs. They are, as of A14, and likely in A15 and A16, still licensed from IMG / PowerVR. [1] [2] Arguing the GPU is not from PowerVR because they have their own variation of design is like arguing Apple doesn't use ARM because they design their own CPU. They are still using tile based rendering, patented by IMG. And for…
Comment linking /news/press-release/imagination-and-apple-sign-new-agreement/
on “Apple Silicon M1 Disruption”Submitted The hardware-accelerated PowerVR ray tracing API explained as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThere's a MIPS + PowerVR PC that can run Debian Linux, with support for hardware virtualization of the GPU. Does not seem to be available outside of Russia. http://www.pcworld.com/article/3040528/computers/this-russia... https://www.imgtec.com/blog/t-platforms-tavolga-terminal-des...
Comment linking /blog/t-platforms-tavolga-terminal-desktop-pc-mips-linux/
on “How enthusiasts designed a powerful desktop PC with an ARM processor”Submitted PowerVR Vulkan driver as a story · 2 points
HN discussionImagination purchased MIPS Technologies 4 years ago for $100M so I think they have the rights to use the MIPS trademark. https://www.imgtec.com/news/press-release/acquisition-of-mip...
Comment linking /news/press-release/acquisition-of-mips-technologies-completed/
on “MIPSfpga 2.0: A CPU architecture course that’s different from the rest”Submitted Imagination reveals their new CPU offering as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
