1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,280 And most of you will know that you can build your own PC. 2 00:00:03,280 --> 00:00:07,480 But have you ever thought about building your own graphics card at home? 3 00:00:07,480 --> 00:00:11,800 Sounds absolutely crazy, but one guy actually did this recently. 4 00:00:11,800 --> 00:00:16,920 Software engineer Dylan Berry has put together a fully assembled prototype he calls Fury 5 00:00:16,920 --> 00:00:21,920 GPU. And we sat down with him to find out exactly how he pulled this off. 6 00:00:21,920 --> 00:00:29,120 The heart of the Fury GPU design is a custom Zinc Ultra Scale Plus FPGA from Xilinx, which 7 00:00:29,120 --> 00:00:35,960 is now an AMD brand. And if you're not sure what an FPGA is, it stands for Field Programmable Gate Array. 8 00:00:35,960 --> 00:00:41,120 Essentially, it's a device that you can configure to be more specialized for certain applications, 9 00:00:41,120 --> 00:00:45,760 as opposed to a more typical desktop CPU that's designed in a more general way so it can run 10 00:00:45,760 --> 00:00:53,240 many different types of applications. The FPGA does include a small ARM processor that can run Linux, but the rest of it can 11 00:00:53,240 --> 00:00:58,880 be programmed to render graphics with a hardware description language, or HDL, which tells 12 00:00:58,880 --> 00:01:04,960 the FPGA how to actually organize its internal circuitry, small cells that can accept many 13 00:01:04,960 --> 00:01:12,120 different types of logic functions. Using his knowledge of graphics engineering, Berry was able to build an architecture optimized 14 00:01:12,120 --> 00:01:17,540 for graphics rendering, a process that took over three years, starting from simply getting 15 00:01:17,540 --> 00:01:22,800 an image on a screen, then building in support for drawing polygons, applying textures, and 16 00:01:22,800 --> 00:01:30,480 blending textures together. Because commercial GPU designs are trade secrets, Berry had to completely start from scratch 17 00:01:30,480 --> 00:01:35,600 instead of using a current GPU as a starting point, explaining why it took so long. 18 00:01:35,600 --> 00:01:40,720 But once the FPGA is completed, you of course need an actual board to install it on so it 19 00:01:40,720 --> 00:01:46,800 can act as a functional graphics card, since, you know, you can't just insert a bare FPGA 20 00:01:46,800 --> 00:01:51,040 into a regular motherboard. I mean, you can, it just, you're not gonna have a good time. 21 00:01:51,040 --> 00:01:56,840 Therefore, Berry also designed Fury GPU's board, a process he said took around one month 22 00:01:56,840 --> 00:02:01,440 and involved thinking carefully about how to lay components out on the board. 23 00:02:01,440 --> 00:02:07,080 Details like trace length were very important, as the various traces that feed the PCIe connector 24 00:02:07,080 --> 00:02:11,000 need to be very similar in length to help with signal integrity. 25 00:02:11,000 --> 00:02:15,200 Placement of these traces was also important to avoid crosstalk, you don't want them 26 00:02:15,200 --> 00:02:19,160 too close together, and he also had to consider what kind of power supplies to put on the 27 00:02:19,160 --> 00:02:25,160 card, as the FPGA itself needs a different voltage compared to the display outs. 28 00:02:25,160 --> 00:02:30,880 After Berry got his board design right, he then sent the files off to a PCB fab in China 29 00:02:30,880 --> 00:02:33,960 and got back, well, some PCBs. 30 00:02:33,960 --> 00:02:38,880 But keep in mind, these were only boards, meaning that to get a working graphics card, 31 00:02:38,880 --> 00:02:45,200 he had to install over 400 individual components such as capacitors and resistors himself, 32 00:02:45,200 --> 00:02:48,400 which of course involved lots of tedious soldering. 33 00:02:48,400 --> 00:02:53,080 Selling and testing the hardware itself took Berry around another two months, but at the 34 00:02:53,080 --> 00:02:57,520 end, he had a card that wasn't too different looking from some graphics cards from the 35 00:02:57,520 --> 00:03:03,720 1990s, but with modern display outs and PCI Express X4 support. 36 00:03:03,720 --> 00:03:09,000 And although current commercial graphics cards typically use X16, Fury GPU gets away with 37 00:03:09,000 --> 00:03:14,160 X4, as it moves far less data than the GPU you probably have in your desktop rig. 38 00:03:14,480 --> 00:03:19,520 We're talking less than one megabyte per frame, as it was designed with mid-90s games 39 00:03:19,520 --> 00:03:25,720 in mind. But even a perfectly executed piece of hardware is useless without the right software. 40 00:03:25,720 --> 00:03:31,120 Like any graphics card, Fury GPU needs some kind of driver in order to run. 41 00:03:31,120 --> 00:03:34,400 Berry said it took him about four months to get the drivers to work. 42 00:03:34,400 --> 00:03:40,200 Windows typically requires drivers to use an architecture called WDDM, and that requires 43 00:03:40,200 --> 00:03:44,760 support for hardware features you'd only find in mass-produced GPUs, such as support 44 00:03:44,760 --> 00:03:53,120 for modern versions of Direct 3D. To get around this, the Fury GPU driver is designed such that Windows instead sees it 45 00:03:53,120 --> 00:03:58,240 as a kernel mode display-only driver, which basically means that it will consider Fury 46 00:03:58,240 --> 00:04:04,360 GPU as being a simpler device that just displays an image instead of doing any actual rendering. 47 00:04:04,360 --> 00:04:11,080 However, the driver itself can switch modes and allow the GPU to actually render frames, 48 00:04:11,080 --> 00:04:15,480 so it kind of tricks Windows into thinking it's just showing the desktop when it's 49 00:04:15,480 --> 00:04:19,000 actually showing the game you're playing. 50 00:04:19,000 --> 00:04:26,120 Gamecheats Enabled The final product uses a custom API that's similar to Vulkan, and Berry was able to modify 51 00:04:26,120 --> 00:04:32,280 the renderer for the original Quake from 1996, getting it to run at 720p at around 60 frames 52 00:04:32,280 --> 00:04:37,640 per second. Unfortunately, it doesn't yet support modern shaders, which would allow for more lighting 53 00:04:37,640 --> 00:04:40,720 effects and other kinds of eye candy we're all used to today. 54 00:04:40,720 --> 00:04:46,440 Berry told us that shader support may be coming in the future, but FPGAs have their limits 55 00:04:46,440 --> 00:04:51,900 compared to mainstream GPUs, as they sacrifice performance for customizability. 56 00:04:51,900 --> 00:04:57,840 We may also see other games from the mid-90s get ported over to the Fury GPU, but can you 57 00:04:57,840 --> 00:05:01,360 actually get your hands on a Fury GPU and play games on it? 58 00:05:01,360 --> 00:05:06,760 I'm sure you're asking. We made it clear that this is mostly a passion project, and that he doesn't have plans 59 00:05:06,760 --> 00:05:12,160 to produce the Fury GPU for sale, especially as it's a continual work in progress that's 60 00:05:12,160 --> 00:05:16,800 currently being operated in a full development environment, so it's not like you can just 61 00:05:16,800 --> 00:05:21,280 slot it into your Windows PC, install the drivers, and have everything work flawlessly. 62 00:05:21,280 --> 00:05:26,640 Still, it's a super cool testament to what you can accomplish with enough time, effort, 63 00:05:26,640 --> 00:05:33,480 and patience with a soldering iron. Thanks for watching. If you liked the video, check out our other video on how CPUs and GPUs are different. 64 00:05:33,480 --> 00:05:37,120 Comment below with video suggestions, and don't forget to subscribe and follow TechWiki. 65 00:05:37,120 --> 00:05:41,520 You've watched a couple of other videos and you didn't do that, so don't forget.