Cloud-Assisted Hybrid Rendering for Thin-Client Games and VR Applications

Abstract: We introduce a novel distributed rendering approach to generate high-quality graphics in thin-client games and VR applications. Many mobile devices have limited computational power to achieve ray tracing in real-time. Hence, hardware-accelerated cloud servers can perform ray tracing instead and have their output streamed to clients in remote rendering. Applying the approach of distributed hybrid rendering, we leverage the computational capabilities of both the thin client and powerful server by performing rasterization locally while offloading ray tracing to the server. With advancements in 5G technology, the server and client can communicate effectively over the network and work together to produce a high-quality output while maintaining interactive frame rates. Our approach can achieve better visuals as compared to local rendering but faster performance as compared to remote rendering.