The concept of GPU

Graphic Processing Unit is the full name of the GPU. GPU is a concept relative to CPU. As the processing of graphics becomes more and more important in modern computers (especially home systems and game enthusiasts), a special graphics core processor is needed. GPU is a chip, is a display chip, is the heart of the graphics card.Copy the code

The role of the GPU

The GPU is the "heart" of a graphics card, equivalent to the CPU in a computer. It determines the grade and most of the performance of the graphics card, and is also the basis for the difference between 2D and 3D graphics cards. The 2D display chip (which is a piece of hardware) relies on the PROCESSING power of the CPU to process 3D images and effects, called "soft acceleration." 3D display chip (this is a hardware) is to process 3D images and special effects in 3D display chip, also known as the "hardware acceleration" function. The display chip is usually the largest chip (and the one with the most pins) on the graphics card. Most graphics cards on the market now use graphics processing chips from NVIDIA and ATI. The GPU enables the graphics card to reduce CPU dependence and perform part of the original CPU's work, especially in 3D graphics processing. The core technologies used by GPU include hardware T&L, cubic environment material mapping and vertex mixing, texture compression and bump mapping, dual texture four-pixel 256-bit rendering engine, etc., and hardware T&L technology can be said to be the logo of GPU. Simply speaking, GPU is a display chip that can support T&L (Transform and Lighting, polygon conversion and light source processing) from the hardware. Because T&L is an important part of 3D rendering, its role is to calculate the 3D position of polygons and process dynamic light effects, which can also be called "geometric processing". A good T&L unit can provide detailed 3D objects and advanced light effects; Only in the most PC, much of the T&L operation is to the CPU (this is known as software T&L), due to the task of the CPU is various, besides T&L, memory management, and do the input response and so on the 3 d graphics processing work, so in the actual operation performance can be discounted, graphics card waiting for CPU data often happen, The computing speed is far behind the demands of today's complex 3D games. Even if the CPU runs at 1GHz or more, it doesn't help much, as this is a problem created by the PC's own design, not the CPU's speed.Copy the code