Intel is designing Processors to bring High Quality VR to mid-range & low-end PCs and Laptops

Mixed Reality / VR / AR, it looks like they will be one of the important features of all devices around us in next 5 years. Companies like Microsoft has put a lot of effort to bring Mixed Reality to PCs at a lower price point, Google’s AR is coming out really good on the smartphones, and so on.

Recently Microsoft announced two types of Mixed Reality, one that could work with integrated GPU, and other termed as Mixed Reality Ultra would need a dedicated GPU. These are mostly mid-range PCs.

Now reports are coming in that Intel is trying to figure out a way to build VR as a dedicated logic unit into its microprocessors.  The work is in design phase already, but then the practical scenario would be completely different.  Intel right now is using its existing media engines for to accelerate 360-degree video, and this can be transformed into a logic unit if things work out.

This was shared by Kim Pallister, the director of the Virtual Reality Center of Excellence at Intel to PCWorld at Virtual Reality Developers Conference (VRDC) in San Francisco.

This effort will make things simpler. VR will become even more affordable, and in future, we might not need a wired connection to experience it. Kim Pallister said:

We’re already using the media engines that we just talked about for 360-degree video or encoding on green screens, and we’re looking at things like our GPU, as well as some other platform features we can’t talk about yet, and saying what are some problems in VR that can be solved there.

As the media consumption and type of media became varied, Intel had to evolve their media engines sometimes earlier. The company had to add GPU logic to its processor cores, as well as video capabilities because the demands of 3D moved beyond the capabilities of its processors. The classic example is the Kaby Lake Chips which comes with a dedicated video engine to accelerate VP9 and HEVC codecs in hardware which helps consumers when they want video streaming from NetFlix and Youtube.