Understanding GPU

Here I've gathered links to blogs/papers/manuals that describe how the GPU work. Some of them talk about a fictional GPU since not all GPU details are available (or the author is not able to make them fully public). There are many different levels of understanding the GPU. There is the GPU itself, the driver and then API used to access the driver. This section mixes all three!

Note that GPU Open is an AMD initative.

• A trip through the Graphics Pipeline (Fabian “ryg” Giesen, 2011)
  • Index
  • Part 1: Introduction; the Software stack.
  • Part 2: GPU memory architecture and the Command Processor.
  • Part 3: 3D pipeline overview, vertex processing.
  • Part 4: Texture samplers.
  • Part 5: Primitive Assembly, Clip/Cull, Projection, and Viewport transform.
  • Part 6: (Triangle) rasterization and setup.
  • Part 7: Z/Stencil processing, 3 different ways.
  • Part 8: Pixel processing “fork phase”.
  • Part 9: Pixel processing “join phase”.
  • Part 10: Geometry Shaders.
  • Part 11: Stream-Out.
  • Part 12: Tessellation.
  • Part 13: Compute Shaders.

• Compute Shaders (Anteru, 2018)
  • Introduction to compute shaders
  • More compute shaders
  • Even more compute shaders

• Breaking Down Barriers (Matt Pettineo, 2018)
  • Part 1: What's a barrier?
  • Part 2: Synchronizing GPU Threads
  • Part 3: Multiple Command Processors
  • Part 4: GPU Preemption
  • PART 5: Back to The Real World

• Understanding GPU context rolls (2018)
• First steps when implementing FP16 (2018)
• Optimizing GPU occupancy and resource usage with large thread groups (2017)

• DirectX 12
  • DirectX 12: Resource Barriers and State Tracking (2015)
  • DirectX 12: Resources Barriers and You (2016)
  • Resource Binding in DirectX 12 (pt.1) (2015)
  • Resource Binding in DirectX 12 (pt.2) (2015)
  • Resource Binding in DirectX 12 (pt.3) (2015)

• AMD Reference Material
  • Developer Guides, Manuals & ISA Documents
    • “Vega” Instruction Set Architecture (2017)

• NVIDIA Reference Manual
  • Turing
    • NVIDIA TURING GPU ARCHITECTURE (2018)
    • NVIDIA Turing Architecture In-Depth

Random Sampling and Monte Carlo Methods

• Multiple Importance Sampling
  • Robust Monte Carlo Methods for Light Transport Simulation (1997) (pdf)
    • Chapter 9: Multiple Importance Sampling

• Jittered sampling
  • Stochastic Sampling in Computer Graphics (1986)
  • Correlated Multi-Jittered Sampling (2013
  • Progressive Multi-Jittered Sample Sequences (2018)

TODO

• https://www.cs.cornell.edu/~srm/publications/EGSR07-btdf.pdf
• http://www.eugenedeon.com/project/importance-sampling-microfacet-based-bsdfs-using-the-distribution-of-visible-normals/
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=zBANWjpbl74&app=desktop