Hardware News

Hardware Geometry Processing, Part 2

Nicklas Renqvist

2003-01-08 00:05:00.0


K from Beyond3D just fired in that they have posted the second part of their Hardware Geometry Processing article. This time around the topics are Programmable Vertex Units, Dynamic Branching & Loops and much much more! Here's a snippet:

The processing block is at the heart of the Vertex Shader, this block executes the actual arithmetic instructions. As indicated before there are quite basic and simple instructions like ADD, there are a bit more complex instructions like DOT3 (Dot Product), and then there are really complicated instructions like a RSQ (Reciprocal Square Root). Now you might think: “it’s a chip it must be able to execute all that with little or no trouble, after all its maths and computers are really fast at those”. Reality is that maths for computers are pretty similar as maths for humans, simple things go very fast but complex things take a longer time.

As usual, very tech and in-depth but a great read if you are into that stuff! Click here for Part 2. If you missed part 1, click here to check it out.

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