In the field of 3D computer graphics, the unified shader model (known in Direct3D 10 as 'Shader Model 4.0') refers to a form of shader hardware in a graphical processing unit (GPU) where all of the shader stages in the rendering pipeline (geometry, vertex, pixel, etc.) have the same capabilities. They can all read textures and buffers, and they use instruction sets that are almost identical.[1]
The unified shader model uses the same hardware resources for both vertex and fragment processing.
History[edit]
Earlier GPUs generally included two types of shader hardware, with the vertex shaders having considerably more instructions than the simpler pixel shaders. This lowered the cost of implementation of the GPU as a whole, and allowed more shaders in total on a single unit. This was at the cost of making the system less flexible, and sometimes leaving one set of shaders idle if the workload used one more than the other. As improvements in fabrication continued, this distinction became less useful. ATI Technologies introduced a unified architecture on the hardware they developed for the Xbox 360, and then introduced this in card form in the TeraScale line. Nvidia quickly followed with their Tesla design. The concept has been universal since then.
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Early shader abstractions (such as Shader Model 1.x) used very different instruction sets for vertex and pixel shaders, with vertex shaders having much more flexible instruction set. Later shader models (such as Shader Model 2.x and 3.0) reduced the differences, approaching unified shader model. Even in the Unified model the instruction set may not be completely the same between different shader types; different shader stages may have a few distinctions. Fragment/pixel shaders can compute implicit texture coordinate gradients, while geometry shaders can emit rendering primitives.[1]
Unified shader architecture[edit]
Unified shader architecture (or unified shading architecture) is a hardware design by which all shader processing units of a piece of graphics hardware are capable of handling any type of shading tasks. Most often Unified Shading Architecture hardware is composed of an array of computing units and some form of dynamic scheduling/load balancing system that ensures that all of the computational units are kept working as often as possible.
Unified shader architecture allows more flexible use of the graphics rendering hardware.[2] For example, in a situation with a heavy geometry workload the system could allocate most computing units to run vertex and geometry shaders. In cases with less vertex workload and heavy pixel load, more computing units could be allocated to run pixel shaders.
While unified shader architecture hardware and unified shader model programming interfaces are not a requirement for each other, a unified architecture is most sensible when designing hardware intended to support an API offering a unified shader model.
OpenGL 3.3 (which offers a unified shader model) can still be implemented on hardware that does not have unified shader architecture. Similarly, hardware that supported non unified shader model APIs could be based on a unified shader architecture, as is the case with Xenos graphics chip in Xbox 360, for example.
The unified shader architecture was introduced with the NvidiaGeForce 8 series, ATIRadeon HD 2000, S3 Chrome 400, Intel GMA X3000 series, Xbox 360's GPU, Qualcomm Adreno 200 series, Mali Midgard, PowerVR SGX GPUs and is used in all subsequent series.
Nvidia
ATI/AMD
References[edit]
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Unified_shader_model&oldid=976660985'
(Redirected from High Level Shader Language)
A scene containing several different 2D HLSL shaders. Distortion of the statue is achieved purely physically, while the texture of the rectangular frame beside it is based on color intensity. The square in the background has been transformed and rotated. The partial transparency and reflection of the water in the foreground are added by a shader applied finally to the entire scene.
The High-Level Shader Language[1] or High-Level Shading Language[2] (HLSL) is a proprietary shading language developed by Microsoft for the Direct3D 9 API to augment the shader assembly language, and went on to become the required shading language for the unified shader model of Direct3D 10 and higher.
HLSL is analogous to the GLSL shading language used with the OpenGL standard. It is very similar to the NvidiaCg shading language, as it was developed alongside it. Early versions of the two languages were considered identical, only marketed differently.[3] HLSL shaders can enable profound speed and detail increases as well as many special effects in both 2D and 3D computer graphics.[citation needed]
HLSL programs come in six forms: pixel shaders (fragment in GLSL), vertex shaders, geometry shaders, compute shaders, tessellation shaders (Hull and Domain shaders), and raytracing shaders (Ray Generation Shaders, Intersection Shaders, Any Hit/Closest Hit/Miss Shaders). A vertex shader is executed for each vertex that is submitted by the application, and is primarily responsible for transforming the vertex from object space to view space, generating texture coordinates, and calculating lighting coefficients such as the vertex's tangent, binormal and normal vectors. When a group of vertices (normally 3, to form a triangle) come through the vertex shader, their output position is interpolated to form pixels within its area; this process is known as rasterization.
Optionally, an application using a Direct3D 10/11/12 interface and Direct3D 10/11/12 hardware may also specify a geometry shader. This shader takes as its input some vertices of a primitive (triangle/line/point) and uses this data to generate/degenerate (or tessellate) additional primitives or to change the type of primitives, which are each then sent to the rasterizer.
D3D11.3 and D3D12 introduced Shader Model 5.1[4] and later 6.0.[5]
Shader model comparison[edit]
GPUs listed are the hardware that first supported the given specifications. Manufacturers generally support all lower shader models through drivers. Note that games may claim to require a certain DirectX version, but don't necessarily require a GPU conforming to the full specification of that version, as developers can use a higher DirectX API version to target lower-Direct3D-spec hardware; for instance DirectX 9 exposes features of DirectX7-level hardware that DirectX7 did not, targeting their fixed-function T&L pipeline.
Pixel shader comparison[edit]
'32 + 64' for Executed Instructions means '32 texture instructions and 64 arithmetic instructions.'
Vertex shader comparison[edit]Shader Model 3.0 Graphics Card
See also[edit]Shader Model 3.0 SupportFootnotes[edit]
External links[edit]Shader Model 3.0 Graphics Card Download
Shader Model 3.0 Farming Simulator 2017
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