GPU Architecture

[BigHands]

Hi everyone. What would be a good starting point to learn about GPU architecture? I know how to program 3D graphics with and without shaders, but I'd like to start learning more about what happens under the hood.

Thanks!

 

[Freak'n Big Panda]

Read the forums? This is a pretty good intro as well, although it's pretty dated now.

 

[Simon F]

Hi everyone. What would be a good starting point to learn about GPU architecture? I know how to program 3D graphics with and without shaders, but I'd like to start learning more about what happens under the hood.
Thanks!

What in particular are you after? "Computer Graphics. Principles and Practice" has a chapter on earlier (but still relevant) graphics hardware. "Real-Time Rendering. Second Edition" has sections on some more recent architectures and I would think the 3rd edition would include more contemporary HW (but I don't have a copy to confirm that).

 

[BigHands]

What in particular are you after? "Computer Graphics. Principles and Practice" has a chapter on earlier (but still relevant) graphics hardware. "Real-Time Rendering. Second Edition" has sections on some more recent architectures and I would think the 3rd edition would include more contemporary HW (but I don't have a copy to confirm that).

Thanks for the info guys. Good call on Real-time Rendering. I bought the 3rd edition a few weeks and remember seeing something in later chapters about the PS3 and Xbox360 GPUs - I completely forgot about that when I posted this message.

I understand the 3D graphics pipeline, but I don't really understand the hardware underneath. For example, I downloaded the ATI Rxxx documents, but don't really understand anything in them. My other issue is I have a computer science degree, not computer engineering, so I haven't been exposed to hardware internals as much as I would have liked (although I'm comfortable with CPUs).

 

[liolio]

All the talk in this article is clearly over my head but I think you may enjoy it:
http://www.realworldtech.com/page.cfm?ArticleID=RWT090808195242

 

[sireric]

This was a good class in 2007 that posted all the notes:

https://graphics.stanford.edu/wikis/cs448-07-spring/

Also, classic computer architecture books (computer architecture, Hennessy and Patterson; Parallel computer architecture, Culler) are all good, fundamental books on computer architectures HW; and there's really nothing very different about GPUs vs. other computer system.