Rendering Hardware

What is an API? – API stands for Application Programming Interface and it is an interface of an application that allows the user to interact with the computer. When you click to create an object within a program this will help create the object. The API is there to help the user behind the scenes and it is something we take for granted.

 What is GPU? – GPU stands for Graphics Processing Unit. GPU’s are graphics rendering devices for personal computers or games consoles etc. Modern GPU’s are very good at what they do and can come with different capabilities and prices.  I think one of the leading graphics card manufacturers are nVidia and their flagship graphics card is the nVidia GEForce 6800 Model, made for gaming.

What is a shader? – A shader is a set of instructions within the software to perform the graphics rendering. A shader can be seen as part of the renderer.
Vertex shaders affect vertex properties like position, color, and texture coordinate.
Geometry shaders can add and remove vertices from a mesh.
Pixel shaders calculate the colour value of individual pixels when the polygons produced by the vertex & geometry shaders are rasterized.