Introduction to 3D Graphics Card Architecture

[bid]

Hello, I am a graduate student in CSC and I am writing a paper that provides an overview of modern 3D Graphics Card Architecture.

I've been looking for a book or a web-site that provides a good overview of topic and, after spending countless hours on searching, and coming up dry, I posted a message on comp.arch Usenet group asking for help in locating a credible source of information on the topic. I got two replies to my post: one of them recommended Google search on specific NVIDIA hardware and, the other, suggested that I visit this site.

So here I am asking for help in locating a tutorial/introduction on/to 3D Graphics Card Architecture; in the short time that I have been here, I have seen a number of interesting articles on the topic, but I was unable to locate any tutorial/introduction on/to the topic.

I would greatly appreciate it if anyone can point me in the right direction.

Thanks!

 

[3dcgi]

Try searching some past threads if you haven't already. I believe this was asked a long time ago. Here are a couple links though. I don't remember if past threads have mentioned any others.

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,464440,00.asp

http://www.3dgate.com/techniques/000424/0424rendering.html

 

[g__day]

bid - as a hardware / PC zealot that was interested in 3d graphics h/w and s/w I think you recieved brilliant advice when someone suggested beyond3d.

The first article at extremetech mentioned by 3dcgi (published about 10 months ago) in my view is a classic and your very best introductory source.

This may help too http://www.beyond3d.com/articles/nv30r300/ although it is too deep in several areas for an overview.

Another great read is the article from 2002 http://tech-report.com/etc/2002q3/nextgen-gpus/index.x?pg=1

Also the last good article at Toms in early 2002 on OpenGL 2.0 gives some persepective on where DX 7 - > 9.0 and OGL 1.3 -> 2.0 where to stand http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/20020222/index.html

 

[RoOoBo]

What I have been using the last years as reference for 3D graphic architectures is the Akeley (old SGI OpenGL creator now in NVidia) and Hanrahan 2001 course in Real-Time Graphic Architectures. You can find all the course slides here:

http://graphics.stanford.edu/courses/cs448a-01-fall/

There less specific courses including, papers and slides, about 3D graphics all around the web if you google a bit.

 

[bid]

Thank You All!

You guys are lifesavers

 

[Simon F]

I've been looking for a book

You could try Akenine-Moller and Haines' "Real-time Rendering". (Book Home page) IIRC they have a couple of case studies of consumer HW. Also, although more up-market/dated, the graphics bible "Computer Graphics. Principles and Practice" looks at a few workstation solutions. These often aren't all that different in principle to today's consumer systems.