Graphics Processing Unit

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Graphics Processing
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Content
INTRODUCTION
DEFINITION
COMPONENTS OF GPU
COMPARISON WITH CPU
ARCHITECTURE
CONCLUSION
Introduction
 A Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) is a microprocessor that

has been designed specifically for the processing of 3D
graphics.
 The processor is built with integrated transform, lighting,
triangle setup/clipping, and rendering engines, capable of
handling millions of math-intensive processes per second.
 GPUs form the heart of modern graphics cards, relieving
the CPU (central processing units) of much of the graphics
processing load.
Why GPU?
 To provide a separate dedicated graphics

resources including a graphics processor and
memory.
 To relieve some of the burden of the main system
resources, namely the Central Processing Unit,
Main Memory, and the System Bus, which would
otherwise get saturated with graphical operations
and I/O requests.
What is a GPU?
 A Graphics Processing Unit or GPU (also

occasionally called Visual Processing Unit or
VPU) is a dedicated processor efficient at
manipulating and displaying computer graphics .
 Like the CPU (Central Processing Unit), it is a
single-chip processor.
HOWEVER,
The abstract goal of a GPU, is to enable a

representation of a 3D world as realistically as
possible. So these GPUs are designed to provide
additional computational power that is customized
specifically to perform these 3D tasks.
GPU vs CPU
 A GPU is tailored for highly parallel operation

while a CPU executes programs serially.
 For this reason, GPUs have many parallel
execution units , while CPUs have few execution
units .
 GPUs have singificantly faster and more
advanced memory interfaces as they need to shift
around a lot more data than CPUs.
 GPUs have much deeper pipelines (several
thousand stages vs 10-20 for CPUs).
BRIEF HISTORY
 First-Generation GPUs
 Up to 1998; Nvidia’s TNT2, ATi’s Rage, and 3dfx’s Voodoo3;DX6 feature set.
 Second-Generation GPUs
 1999 -2000; Nvidia’s GeForce256 and GeForce2, ATi’s Radeon7500, and S3’s
Savage3D; T&L; OpenGL and DX7;Configurable.
 Third-Generation GPUs
 2001; GeForce3/4Ti, Radeon8500, MS’s Xbox; OpenGL ARB, DX7/8; Vertex
Programmability + ASM
 Fourth-Generation GPUs
 2002 onwards; GeForce FX family, Radeon 9700; OpenGL+extensions, DX9;
Vertex/Pixel Programability + HLSL; 0.13μ Process, 125M T/C, 200M T/S.
 Fifth-Generation GPUs
- GeForce 8X:DirectX10.
COMPONENTS OF GPU
 Graphics Processor
 Graphics co-processor
 Graphics accelerator
 Frame buffer
 Memory
 Graphics BIOS
 Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC)
 Display Connector
 Computer (Bus) Connector
GPU Architecture
 How many processing units?

 Lots.
 How many ALUs?

 Hundreds.
 Do you need a cache?

 Sort of.
 What kind of memory?

 very fast.
The difference…….
Without GPU With GPU

The GPU pipeline
 The GPU receives geometry information from the

CPU as an input and provides a picture as an
output
 Let’s see how that happens…
host vertex triangle pixel memory

interface processing setup processing interface
Host Interface
 The host interface is the communication bridge
between the CPU and the GPU.
 It receives commands from the CPU and also
pulls geometry information from system memory.
 It outputs a stream of vertices in object space
with all their associated information (texture
coordinates, per vertex color etc) .

Vertex Processing
 The vertex processing stage receives vertices from the

host interface in object space and outputs them in screen
space
 This may be a simple linear transformation, or a complex
operation involving morphing effects
 No new vertices are created in this stage, and no vertices
are discarded (input/output has 1:1 mapping)

Triangle setup
In this stage geometry information becomes

raster information (screen space geometry is the
input, pixels are the output)
Prior to rasterization, triangles that are
backfacing or are located outside the viewing
frustrum are rejected

Triangle Setup (cont…..)
A pixel is generated if and only if its center is inside

the triangle
Every pixel generated has its attributes computed to
be the perspective correct interpolation of the three
vertices that make up the triangle
Pixel Processing
Each pixel provided by triangle setup is fed into

pixel processing as a set of attributes which are
used to compute the final color for this pixel
The computations taking place here include
texture mapping and math operations

Memory Interface
 Pixel colors provided by the previous stage are written to

the framebuffer
 Used to be the biggest bottleneck before pixel processing
took over
 Before the final write occurs, some pixels are rejected by
the zbuffer .On modern GPUs z is compressed to reduce
framebuffer bandwidth (but not size).

Programmability in GPU pipeline
 In current state of the art GPUs, vertex and pixel

processing are now programmable
 The programmer can write programs that are executed
for every vertex as well as for every pixel
 This allows fully customizable geometry and shading
effects that go well beyond the generic look and feel of
older 3D applications

Conclusion
Graphics Processing Unit is not a wonder that this

piece of hardware is often referred to as an exotic
product as far as computer peripherals are
concerned.
By observing the current pace at which work is going
on in developing GPUs we can surely come to a
conclusion that we will be able to see better and
faster GPUs in the near future.
Reference
www.google.com
www.wikipedia.com
www.studymafia.org
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www.studymafia.

 A Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) is a microprocessor that

 To provide a separate dedicated graphics

 A Graphics Processing Unit or GPU (also

The abstract goal of a GPU, is to enable a

 A GPU is tailored for highly parallel operation

 How many processing units?

 How many ALUs?

 Do you need a cache?

 What kind of memory?

Without GPU With GPU

 The GPU receives geometry information from the

host vertex triangle pixel memory

host vertex triangle pixel memory

 The vertex processing stage receives vertices from the

host vertex triangle pixel memory

In this stage geometry information becomes

host vertex triangle pixel memory

A pixel is generated if and only if its center is inside

Each pixel provided by triangle setup is fed into

host vertex triangle pixel memory

 Pixel colors provided by the previous stage are written to

host vertex triangle pixel memory

 In current state of the art GPUs, vertex and pixel

host vertex triangle pixel memory

Graphics Processing Unit is not a wonder that this

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