General-purpose computing on graphics processing units: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 11:11, 13 April 2005

Revision as of 17:35, 17 April 2005

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'''G'''eneral-'''P'''urpose Computing on '''G'''raphics '''P'''rocessing '''U'''nits (also referred to as GPGP and to a lesser extent GP^2) is a recent trend in computer science that uses the [[Graphics_processing_unit|graphics processing unit]] to perform the computations rather than the [[Central processing unit|CPU]].

Game programmers have had the need to make more realistic-looking effects, and this led to programmable [[vertex]] shaders and fragment shaders. Vertex shaders are programs that run on the GPU and allow programmers to specify how the vertices of a geometric shape will be lit. Fragment shaders also run on the GPU and allow programmers to specify how each fragment, or pre-pixel, will be colored. Naturally, more bits per pixel allow a higher range of colors to be used, so graphics cards have increased the number of bits that represent each color component.