The ‘ray tracing’ of the Exynos 2200 chip with RDNA 2 looks good, although the difference should be made by the FSR technology

Samsung seems to be determined to throw a punch on the table. Two days ago it presented its new flagship processor, the Exynos 2200 chip, which in all likelihood will land very soon in the hands of the next Galaxy S22 (according to the leaker Jon Prosser these smartphones can be reserved from February 9). And, as the leaks had predicted for months, its graphic logic will be implemented on the microarchitecture RDNA 2 de AMD.

Although we will not know how the GPU integrated in this microprocessor performs until we have the opportunity to test one of the first smartphones that will incorporate it, we can intuit what does it offer us. And we can do it because we know in great detail the characteristics and peculiarities of the RDNA 2 microarchitecture. The feature that is making the most noise since the Exynos 2200 chip was released is its support for ray tracing rendering (ray tracing).

And we have no objection at all. There is no doubt that this technology has come to games to stay, and it is good news that it is finally about to land on mobile phones, although for the moment it only reaches the new Samsung models. PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PS5 have shown us that ray tracing can have a profound impact on our gaming experience, but it also has a very important impact. in the performance of graphics engines who use it.

Ready to put smartphones on the ropes

During our tests with the NVIDIA and AMD graphics cards that offer us hardware support for this innovation, we have verified that the stress it puts on the graphics logic is extraordinarily intense. And this has a price: the rate of images per second suffers in a very clear way. Currently, many high-end and mid-range mobiles incorporate screens designed to work at a refresh rate of up to 120 Hz. Some even exceed that figure (the ASUS ROG Phone 5, for example, reaches 144 Hz).

Taking advantage of these screens with games requires that the graphic logic is capable of delivering a stable image rate, and, if possible, as close as possible to those refresh rates. And the challenge that the graphic logic of any mobile phone will surely face when it has to use ray tracing is exactly the same that has been testing the graphics cards of our computers for a long time: sustaining a cadence of images stable and elevated when partially rendering with ray tracing it’s not easy at all.

Fortunately, GPUs have a very valuable ally: image reconstruction technology. AMD graphics processors use the technique FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR)And, although it has gone unnoticed in the time that has passed since the introduction of the Exynos 2200 chip, we have no doubt that it will play a leading role when the first games designed to offer us ray tracing arrive on the Galaxy S22.

Otherwise, and taking our experience with PC graphics cards as a reference, these phones will hardly be able to deliver performance with these video games. really satisfying.

It is possible that the Xclipse graphic logic of the Exynos 2200 with RDNA 2 architecture will surprise us with its performance, but, even so, smartphones that bet on ray tracing, whether from Samsung or any other brand, will have to rely on in image reconstruction techniques. At least with the most ambitious games.

Also, the loss of detail that this technology sometimes brings should be less noticeable on a mobile phone screen than on a television, monitor or laptop screen due to its smaller size, so resort to FSR it makes all the sense in the world (we explain in detail how this technology works in the article that I link right here).

NVIDIA has it easy to break into mobile and fight with AMD

The arrival of AMD graphics in mobile phones puts on the table the possibility that NVIDIA will follow in its footsteps. It is only a hypothesis because, in reality, there is nothing confirmed (nothing has even been leaked that points in this direction), but it would not be strange if it ends up happening. After all, NVIDIA has a graphics platform, that of its Tegra X1/X1+ chips, which on paper could be integrated relatively easily on a microprocessor with ARM cores designed for a mobile phone.

Also, just like AMD, NVIDIA also has its own image reconstruction technology: DLSS 2.0. We have told you about it many times because the first version of this innovation has been available since 2019, and its latest revisions work surprisingly well (we have thoroughly analyzed it in the article that I link here).

Its strategy is very different from the one used by FSR, but regardless of the way these technologies are implemented, what is really important is that the image reconstruction techniques are in all probability will have a leading role in mobile games with ray tracing. We probably won’t have to wait long to find out.

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