I had once said that my project is in it's completion. Yes, the basic objective is completed, but I found the project is just a collection of methods and tools that existed for the past few years. In short, nothing new in it. So, with every time I got right now, I venture into something quite new in graphic programming, shaders.
Actually, shaders is not new. It's already exist for the past few years, yet it only emerge recently with the great supporting power of technology and GPU. So, what is shaders? Shaders is a small piece of program, that instead of execute in your cpu, it is run in your gpu (graphic card). The actual implementation of the shaders is to take the heavy load out of cpu, and thus improve the performance or gaming experience (in which shaders are mostly used)
As technologies improve over the last few years, so do shaders. In the past, shaders are called low-level shaders, as the programs are mostly in ASM alike syntax, but recently GLSL and HLSL are emerging, and it ease programmers to write their shaders easily. So now I'm in a serious dillema, to learn either the new shaders (GLSL or HLSL) or the low-level shaders. GLSL / HLSL is going to be the main stream for shaders from now on, but as you know, newer technologies means newer requirement. My old Radeon 8500 doesn't support GLSL. However, low-level shaders (via ARB_vertex_program) are supported, but low-level shaders are quite hard to follow, and it doesn't worth since the introduction of GLSL. Haih... what to do now???
Actually, shaders is not new. It's already exist for the past few years, yet it only emerge recently with the great supporting power of technology and GPU. So, what is shaders? Shaders is a small piece of program, that instead of execute in your cpu, it is run in your gpu (graphic card). The actual implementation of the shaders is to take the heavy load out of cpu, and thus improve the performance or gaming experience (in which shaders are mostly used)
As technologies improve over the last few years, so do shaders. In the past, shaders are called low-level shaders, as the programs are mostly in ASM alike syntax, but recently GLSL and HLSL are emerging, and it ease programmers to write their shaders easily. So now I'm in a serious dillema, to learn either the new shaders (GLSL or HLSL) or the low-level shaders. GLSL / HLSL is going to be the main stream for shaders from now on, but as you know, newer technologies means newer requirement. My old Radeon 8500 doesn't support GLSL. However, low-level shaders (via ARB_vertex_program) are supported, but low-level shaders are quite hard to follow, and it doesn't worth since the introduction of GLSL. Haih... what to do now???
1 comment:
flip a coin. lolz. jkjk. depends on your budget, if possible aim for the new technology then.
Post a Comment