英特尔组建图形实验室 打造最佳沉浸式游戏体验

英特尔已经开始认真对待独立GPU市场，这家芯片制造商日前组建了一个研究部，决计改进图形的“整体领域”，包括让游戏体验更加真实。

Intel announced Wednesday it has formed the appropriately named Graphics Research Organization within the company's Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics Group, and its goal is to "deliver the best immersive visuals to everybody on the planet." The news was disclosed a day after Intel promoted its top graphics executive, Raja Koduri.

英特尔公司周三宣布，已经在旗下的加速计算系统和图形集团内成立了名为“图形研究组织”的研究部门，其目标是“向地球上每个人提供最佳的沉浸式视觉效果”。英特尔在披露此消息后的第二天提升了旗下顶级图形主管Raja Koduri。

The group's purview goes beyond just making better graphics for games. Intel is also setting its sights on other areas, some of which sound rather metaverse-y to us, such as "future virtual social interactions, democratized content creation and realistic visual effects," according to a blog post written by the group's director, Anton Kaplanyan.

该研究部门的管辖范围还不仅仅是为游戏制作更好的图形。英特尔还将目光投向其他的领域，其中的一些领域咋听起来相当地玄幻，例如该部门主管Anton Kaplanyan的一篇博客文章提到“未来虚拟社会互动、平民化内容创作和现实视觉效果”等等。

Kaplanyan, who joined Intel's graphics business unit last year, said his group plans to work on various graphics technologies, which he pledged will benefit the entire industry.

去年加入英特尔图形业务部门的Kaplanyan表示，他的研究部门计划研究各种图形技术，他肯定这将令整个行业受益。

"Our objective is to build the best possible graphics solutions, but we also want to move forward the entire field, the whole ecosystem. And we can only do that by being open, collaborative and forward-looking," he said.

他表示，“我们的目标是打造尽可能最佳的图形解决方案，但我们也希望推动整个领域及整个生态系统的发展。而我们只有通过开放、协作和前瞻性的方式才能做到这一点。”

Now, you may be thinking, does Intel really want to develop technologies that benefit the broader industry, including its rivals Nvidia and AMD? While we should ultimately wait and see how Intel's broader efforts play out, the company is developing a version of its Xe Super Sampling technology that can support GPUs from competitors.

读者这时候可能会想，英特尔开发的技术真的想有利于更广泛的行业，包括其竞争对手Nvidia和AMD？虽然我们最终还是要看英特尔以后怎么做，但该公司正在开发的Xe超级采样技术的一个版本倒是真的可以支持竞争对手的GPU。

### Building upon ray tracing with path tracing

基于光线追踪建立路径追踪

One of the first areas of focus for the new group is real-time path tracing, a rendering technique that can makes graphics look more realistic than what is possible with real-time ray tracing alone.

这个新的研究部门首先关注的领域之一是实时路径追踪，路径追踪是一种渲染技术，可以使图形看起来比单独使用实时光线追踪更逼真。

Nvidia, the dominant player in the GPU market, made real-time ray tracing in games available for a mainstream audience with its GeForce RTX GPUs that debuted in 2018. Real-time ray tracing is now also supported by AMD's latest GPUs in addition to the new ones coming from Intel.

英伟达（Nvidia）作为GPU市场主导者曾在2018年首次面向主流受众推出的GeForce RTX GPU使用了实时光线追踪游戏。除了来自英特尔的新GPU外，AMD的最新GPU现在也支持实时光线追踪。

While ray tracing aims to realistically recreate the way light interacts with objects by casting rays from many points, path tracing combines ray tracing with other techniques to simulate "the true physics of light," as Nvidia put it in a recent blog post.

正如Nvidia在最近的一篇博文中所说的，光线追踪的目的是利用从许多点投射光线真实地再现光线与物体的互动方式，而路径追踪则是将光线追踪与其他技术相结合达到模拟“真正的光线物理学”的目的。

Nvidia may be the furthest ahead in enabling real-time ray tracing in games, but the GPU giant admitted that real-time path tracing is still in its early days. After all, the many games that support ray tracing only have partial implementations, and there are only a few games that support path tracing currently, including Quake II and Minecraft via plugins.

在游戏中实现实时光线追踪这一块，Nvidia可能是走得最前面的，但这家GPU巨头承认，实时路径追踪仍处于早期阶段。毕竟许多支持光线追踪的游戏也只有做了部分实现，目前只有少数游戏支持路径追踪，包括Quake II和Minecraft的插件。

In his blog post for Intel, Kaplanyan agreed there is much work to do to make path tracing more viable in games; he believes it represents the next evolution in real-time computer graphics. We could also consider it the proper next step in Kaplanyan's career, given that he previously worked on Nvidia's implementation of ray tracing as a research scientist there.

Kaplanyan在为英特尔撰写的博文中同意，要令路径追踪在游戏中更加可行还有很多工作要做；他认为路径追踪代表了实时计算机图形的下一次进化。我们也可以认为这是Kaplanyan职业生涯不错的下一步，因为他之前是Nvidia的研究科学家及从事光线追踪的实施工作。

"While the visual impact of path tracing is clearly demonstrated in film, a lot of challenges remain to be solved to make it practical in real-time graphics and games," he said.

他表示，“路径追踪的视觉效果可以在电影里得到了清晰的展示，但要使路径追踪在实时图形和游戏中实际使用，还有很多挑战需要解决。”

### Machine learning and metaverse dreams

机器学习和元数据梦想

Kaplanyan said Intel's Graphics Research Organization also plans to expand upon the progress the company has made in using machine learning to improve graphical fidelity and performance.

Kaplanyan表示，英特尔在利用机器学习提高图形保真度和性能方面取得了一些进展，英特尔的图形研究部门也有计划扩大这方面的进展。

These efforts started with Xe Super Sampling, an AI-based image upscaling technology the chipmaker is introducing in its first generation of Intel Arc GPUs that come out this year.

这方面的工作始于Xe超级采样，Xe超级采样是一项基于人工智能的图像放大技术，英特尔在今年推出的第一代Arc GPU中引入了这项技术。

In addition, the group is turning its attention to improving the way user content is generated in 3D spaces, which sounds like one way Intel plans to partake in one of the tech world's favorite buzzwords from the last couple years, the metaverse.

此外，该研究部门正在将注意力投向改善用户内容在3D空间中的生成方式，听起来像是英特尔计划参与元空间的一种方式。元空间是过去几年科技界最受欢迎的流行语之一。

If you want to dig into the kind of graphics research Intel is working on, Kaplanyan's new group has a web page set up, and it includes a list of papers the company has already published. ®

Kaplanyan的新研究部门建了一个网页，有兴趣的读者可以去深入了解一下相关的图形研究。