Raytracing on Intel's Arc B580

Edit: The article originally said Intel’s BVH nodes were 4-wide, based on a misreading of QuadLeaf. After inspecting Intel compiler code, QuadLeaf actually means two merged triangles with a shared side (a quadrilateral, not a quad of four triangles). Intel’s discrete GPU strategy has emphasized add-on features ever since Alchemist launched. Right from the start, Intel invested heavily in dedicated matrix multiplication units, raytracing accelerators, and hardware video codecs. Battlemage continues that trend. Raytracing deserves attention because raytraced effects are gaining prominence on an increasing number of titles. Here, I’ll be looking at a Cyberpunk 2077 frame rendered on Intel’s Arc B580, with path tracing enabled. As always, I’m focusing on how the architecture handles the workload, rather than absolute performance. Mainstream tech outlets already do an excellent job discussing final performance. Definitely check out the prior article on Meteor Lake’s raytracing implementa ... Read full article.