[HN Gopher] Apple testing new external display with A13 chip
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Apple testing new external display with A13 chip
Author : tambourine_man
Score : 45 points
Date : 2021-07-23 16:49 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (9to5mac.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (9to5mac.com)
| wodenokoto wrote:
| Why would you want your external GPU built into the display?
|
| When I saw the headline, I thought maybe it had a webcam and the
| A13 would do things like portrait mode, before the image reached
| the computer.
| FinalBriefing wrote:
| Possibly to support wireless connections? You;ll be able to
| move your mouse across devices in the next version of
| iOS/macOS, so maybe this will allow you to use a screen without
| a device connected to it?
| sliken wrote:
| Why not do 3d inside the monitor? You send it textures and
| triangles and you get great 3d perf when connected, and more
| power efficiency when you are mobile (without the monitor
| connected).
| yazaddaruvala wrote:
| The monitor could also have retained state (based on the
| pre-fetching of textures, etc as you said), so the majority
| of time the display and iDevice are sending small, low
| latency packets for mouse movement, or clicks, and periodic
| bulk transfers of data to sync files, etc.
| tarikjn wrote:
| I think it actually makes a lot of sense, from a computer
| architecture point of view: (1) total resolution is generally a
| component of the graphic processing power needed (for
| straightforward graphics rendering), and so scaling GPU power
| with displays/resolution make sense (2) placing a GPU in the
| display lower the demands on the interface, of which Apple has
| repeatedly hit the limits on
|
| In addition/as a result of these you get some usability and
| user experience advantages: (a) avoiding degrading laptop
| performance when connecting an external display without the
| user having to know about eGPUs (b) no additional
| box/cables/power mess from using an eGPU
| amelius wrote:
| And cooling can be easier through a large flat surface too.
| In fact that could be one of the main reasons.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| It could be a great docking setup for a lightweight laptop. On
| the go you have the power efficient chip with an 8 core GPU,
| then you plug into the screen and you have a much more powerful
| one.
| yazaddaruvala wrote:
| I don't know, but my guess:
|
| Apple Exec: "Build an external display for the iPhone and/or
| iWatch."
|
| Apple Engineers: "Ok, but we will need a GPU built into the
| display or it'll look like shit. It'll also need a lot of
| RAM/SSD to store textures, etc. Additionally, a high bandwidth,
| low latency wireless connection between the iDevice and the
| display (e.g. UWB)."
|
| Previously to support an enormous external display the iDevice
| would need to have a large GPU, battery, etc that are mostly
| unused except for when the display is "active". With a GPU in
| the display, the iDevice just needs good enough data transfer
| rate to get textures and stuff over to the display, meanwhile
| events like mouse movement, or open an app, or switch apps can
| be very low latency instructions sent from the iDevice to the
| display and vice-versa.
| [deleted]
| tinus_hn wrote:
| Perhaps ironically the original Apple Watch wasn't much more
| than an external display for the iPhone.
| floatingatoll wrote:
| macOS uses a PDF-like canvas as the core display engine^,
| upon which everything writes object layers that have refresh
| loops independent from the main canvas 'flatten layers into
| the display' loop. This is all inside WindowServer, and is
| why <Shift-Command-4> <Spacebar> lets you select an entire
| window _including_ the shadowed border, _without_ picking up
| anything from above or beneath it, because Spacebar activates
| object selection mode.
|
| And we know that Apple has figured out secure pairing of T2
| chips for external accessories (the touchID keyboard), so
| they can run secure-trusted components outside of the main
| hardware.
|
| So they could _in theory_ run a WindowServer process on the
| display 's internal Cortex chip, paired via T2 to provide
| verifiable security, hosting the WindowServer canvas for that
| display and lets the host device offload the 'flatten layers
| to display' problem, handle the EDR mapping, and so on. That
| would be a boon to laptops and also to thermally-constrained
| desktops, and here's why:
|
| On my Mac, WindowServer is the highest user of CPU time in
| total, exceeding kernel_task, coreaudiod, everything _except_
| Zoom (which does non-accelerated H.264 encoding /decoding on
| x64). So if I were to plug in a second 5K display alongside
| my built-in, my WindowServer CPU usage would double.
| Fortunately, I can afford that -- but maybe a laptop cannot.
| Offloading that WindowServer burden for managing traffic
| to/from the LCD, and for dealing with layer flattening and
| security property management (you can't screenshot certain OS
| dialogs with a specific security flag set!), would be a
| tremendous win not only for battery life of the host, but
| also a theoretical performance win for latency, as now macOS
| would only need to shuttle specific layer changes over the
| wire.
|
| Of course, it could still act as a dumb display for any host
| that isn't ready to negotiate a T2-protected WindowServer
| connection, but my idea above would definitely go a long way
| to explaining why Apple dropped support for x64-style eGPU
| _while still_ investigating hardware-accelerated monitors.
|
| ^ it used to be implemented as PDF internally, not sure if it
| still is or not
|
| ^^ you used to be able to kernel panic macOS by making a
| window so tall that, when screenshot using the Spacebar layer
| selection method, an out-of-bounds write would occur from
| within WindowServer
| fstrthnscnd wrote:
| In other words, they would reinvent X display servers, but
| with X replaced with PDF?
| Traubenfuchs wrote:
| I have rarely ever learned this much from a single comment
| here.
| ttul wrote:
| .. or iPad. Many professional creative types use iPads in
| their professional work. Being able to hook up to a high end
| display wirelessly would be a great help to this segment of
| professional customer.
| pengaru wrote:
| Arguably what's an appropriate GPU bandwidth is largely defined
| by the display attached to it, primarily its resolution, color
| depth, and refresh rate.
|
| But I still don't think it makes sense to physically merge the
| two.
|
| Displays wear out far faster than the GPUs driving them, and
| just have much higher failure rates in general, being physical
| targets for thrown handheld controllers and what not. Doesn't
| seem wise to make the display so much more costly to replace by
| shoving the GPU within it.
|
| But this is Apple... making this expensive to replace is kind
| of their M.O.
| closewith wrote:
| > Displays wear out far faster than the GPUs driving them,
| and just have much higher failure rates in general, being
| physical targets for thrown handheld controllers and what
| not. Doesn't seem wise to make the display so much more
| costly to replace by shoving the GPU within it.
|
| Is this true? This seems nearly diametric to my experience.
| kiawe_fire wrote:
| Mine too.
|
| In fact I dare say the GPU has been the single most failure
| prone component of every computer I've owned for the past
| 15 years.
|
| Which only further illustrates the point that putting
| something expensive and unreliable into an already
| expensive device seems risky.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _Displays wear out far faster than the GPUs driving them_
|
| Do they?
|
| In my experience they both last forever until you decide to
| upgrade to better specs. And in that case it's quite likely
| you upgrade both together.
|
| Displays don't really "wear out" these days in normal usage.
|
| Although I guess I'm not really sure why you say they're a
| target for thrown handheld controllers ha... are you speaking
| about yourself or about kids...?
| pengaru wrote:
| > Do they?
|
| Yes.
|
| Burn-in is a real problem [0], especially for OLEDs last I
| checked.
|
| LED backlights wear out, I've personally helped multiple
| people replace them in external monitors and laptops over
| the years.
|
| And they're obviously more fragile and exposed to the
| elements than a GPU within a case.
|
| > are you speaking about yourself or about kids...?
|
| What difference does it make? You do realize kids are a
| real factor, they exist, are rather common actually. And
| these days gaming has become just as popular among adults
| too.
|
| It's as if everyone forgot the rash of broken displays when
| the wii came out... surely those people appreciated not
| having to pay for a GPU too when replacing those displays.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_burn-
| in#Plasma,_LCD,_an...
| snowwrestler wrote:
| Most people probably don't want an external GPU built into the
| display.
|
| What they maybe do want is to plug a mobile computer into a big
| sharp hi-res monitor and get great performance. Since many
| graphic loads scale with resolution, building some processing
| horsepower directly into the monitor could be a way to deliver
| the experience that people want, even if their current computer
| doesn't have very powerful graphics.
| athenot wrote:
| Interesting. Does this mean the display itself would be running
| the WindowServer process? On my mac with a 5k external display,
| it's consistently using about half a core all throughout the day.
| rektide wrote:
| Sounds like a possible convergence of iMac and & XDR monitor!
|
| If you have a couple thousand dollar display, throwing $60 in
| cpu, RAM, & storage on top of it seems like a pretty dead-obvious
| win to me. Most companies would just have nothing particularly
| good to offer- Android? Windows? webOS? Ok options but not great,
| and they are paying a lot more for less well-integrated cpus. For
| Apple, they have great chips made not bought, in vast volume, and
| can make their pick of OSXI, TV, or iOS OS software.
|
| I believe the new iMac 27 might not have Target Display Mode, the
| ability to take HDMI input, which old displays had[1]. I'm not
| sure that kind of capability is really needed, for long. One of
| the things I'm looking forward to with USB4 is that there is a
| really good 40Gbps host-to-host connectivity build right in to
| the spec. This is a generic connection, not specific to video,
| but I can certainly imagine doing a really good low-latency
| remote-desktop over a high quality connection like that. So, my
| hope is, medium-term, that we don't need HDMI &c input on our
| computers for them to act as auxiliary displays. There's already
| a world of softwares out there for using tablets auxiliary
| displays, my Linux desktop runs Sway which makes adding a
| virtual/remote display extremely simple, all that we're missing
| is a way for two computers to plug in-to one another & connect!
| Amazingly comedically weird situation.
|
| [1] https://www.lifewire.com/use-imac-as-monitor-with-target-
| dis...
| salamandersauce wrote:
| TDM is good because you can use it as a monitor long after
| you've stopped using it as a computer.
|
| My worry with embedding an A13 or whatever is that it will
| require an Apple device to do anything or a bunch of hackery to
| make it work on a non-Apple device. Previous Apple monitors
| were already sometimes a PITA to get running with non-Apple
| stuff. It just ends up with more ecosystem lock in and that's
| not needed from a probably $1000+ monitor.
| Theophrastos wrote:
| I would rather reconcile this rumour to this patent filed last
| year about a "Peer-to-peer distributed computing system for
| heterogeneous device types"
|
| https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/09/08/apple-researching...
| rsynnott wrote:
| Why are we assuming this is a display, rather than some sort of
| kiosk-iPad thing?
| tmalsburg2 wrote:
| Why are we not assuming it is both?
| rtutz wrote:
| Maybe this also aims to include some Apple TV features into the
| display. As some people use the same screen for work and
| entertainment in their living rooms. Therefore it could also
| provide a new node for Siri access.
| gswdh wrote:
| "...but there are still no rumours of an updated version..."
|
| Is it me or does this statement imply the need for an updated
| version. To me, it implies an updated one is needed because
| that's what is meant to happen, we get a new one every x years
| because - not because it's actually needed.
| woleium wrote:
| I'm guessing it's to go along with a DaaS (desktop as a service),
| like the recently announced windows 365.
| mikece wrote:
| Sounds like iOS or tvOS will be on board the monitor. I would
| find it more interesting to have a monitor with 16 to 32 cores of
| M1 (or M2?) that expand the compute and render capacity of a
| MacBook Pro when plugged in. As nice as mobile video editing is
| currently, having your monitor host an elastic compute capability
| and help cut down on 4K or 8K video rendering would be very, very
| interesting.
| chaostheory wrote:
| It could be the fabled Apple TV that Steve Jobs was hinting at
| before his death.
|
| To be honest, both Amazon and Google has gotten this right
| already with no touch voice controls.
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