Programming Languages White Papers
Shading Compilers
Overview Graphics hardware evolution in the past year has been highlighted by improved shading resources, the introduction of dynamic flow control and the emergence of multi-GPU system configurations. Executed program length increased substantially and register availability became more affordable. As a result, compiler support for segmenting a shading program to fit hardware constraints has diminished and is mostly required on low cost hardware platforms. The presence of dynamic flow control functionality has made true loops and conditionals, nested or un-nested, first class citizens in a shader description. Dynamic branching brings speed-ups to many algorithms that contain early out opportunities, while also simplifying shader programmability. Data dependent flow control might first be looked at odds with the SIMD architecture nature of the GPU.
| Publisher | Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) | File Format | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Date Published | April 2005 | ||
| Format | White Papers | ||
| Topics | |||



