British semi-conductor firm ARM have announced a new series of processors that have been designed specifically with virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) videogaming in mind.
ARM say that they are aiming to offer the potential of ‘distributed intelligence’ to device vendors, which includes such things as artificial intelligence (AI), on-device learning and the use of 4K imaging and 5G wireless. ARM ay that the architecture of the new processors allows for ‘system on a chip’ designers nad manufacturers to have up to eight cores in a single cluster.
The new processors are the Cortex-A75 and Cortex-A55, which have been designed to work alongside the Mali-G72 graphics processor. ARM say that the new processors have been designed to: “Address the changing nature of computers driven by AI and other more human-like experiences.”
The Cortex-A75 will be capable of delivering a 50% performance improvement compared to currently available devices such as the Cortext-A73. The Cortex-A75 has been designed for laptops and large-screen smartphones and other mobile devices and is fully VR-ready. ARM also say that the device is suitable for use in self-driving vehicles.
The Mali-G72 graphics processors has also been designed with VR and mobile videogaming in mind. ARM are hoping that the processors will enable advanced mobile VR for users, since the device has been equipped with machine learning that could improve frame-rates, streaming and responsiveness. With frame-rates and the smoothness of the response being so important in VR, this could be a significant step.
The Mali G72 offers a 25% increase in power efficiency compared to the previous model and contains additional improvements in the areas of anti-aliasing, foveated rendering and a texture system called Adaptive Scalable Texture Compression (ASTC) which allows textures and image quality to be compressed in less critical areas to save power.
VRFocus will continue to report on new developments in mobile VR technology.