Is there a free software GPU simulator?

[nobond]

Is there a good(legacy) free software GPU simulator which cover the most basic 3D (or 2.5 D as ovg) pipeline ? It could was for the educational purpose since I am just thinking this would help me to understand all kinds of 3D materials more.

 

[arjan de lumens]

Have a look at:

• Mesa3D - general-purpose software renderer, implements the OpenGL 2.1 API, with shaders.
• ATTILA - GPU simulator; unlike Mesa, this one aims to model actual GPU behavior rather than just implementing an API.

 

[Nick]

If you just want to learn more about 3D rendering I'd suggest to have a look at Muli3D. It's a software renderer written purely in C++, with a nice straightforward architecture.