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Computer Science > Graphics

arXiv:2109.14682 (cs)
[Submitted on 29 Sep 2021]

Title:Unified Shader Programming in C++

Authors:Kerry A. Seitz Jr., Theresa Foley, Serban D. Porumbescu, John
D. Owens
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    Abstract: In real-time graphics, the strict separation of
    programming languages and environments for host (CPU) code and
    GPU code results in code duplication, subtle compatibility bugs,
    and additional development and maintenance costs. In contrast,
    popular general-purpose GPU (GPGPU) programming models like CUDA
    and C++ AMP avoid many of these issues by presenting unified
    programming environments where both host and GPU code are written
    in the same language, can be in the same file, and share lexical
    scopes. To bring the benefits of unified programming to real-time
    graphics, this paper examines graphics-specific challenges that
    complicate the development of such a unified model and explores
    how to overcome them in a widely used programming language.
    We observe that GPU code specialization, a key optimization in
    real-time graphics, requires coordination between parameters that
    are compile-time-constant in GPU code but are assigned values at
    runtime in host code based on dynamic data. Current methods used
    to implement specialization do not translate to a unified
    environment where host and GPU code share declarations of these
    parameters. Furthermore, this compile-time vs. runtime
    coordination is not innately expressible in the popular languages
    used in this domain.
    In this paper, we create a unified environment for real-time
    graphics programming in C++ by co-opting existing features of the
    language and implementing them with alternate semantics to
    express the services required. Specifically, we co-opt C++
    attributes and virtual functions, which enables us to provide
    first-class support for specialization in our unified system. By
    co-opting existing features, we enable programmers to use
    familiar C++ programming techniques to write host and GPU code
    together, while still achieving efficient generated C++ and HLSL
    code via our source-to-source translator.

Comments:    13 pages, 1 figure, 8 code listings, 2 tables. In
             preparation for future conference/journal submission
Subjects:    Graphics (cs.GR); Programming Languages (cs.PL)
ACM classes: I.3.6; D.3.2; D.3.4
Cite as:     arXiv:2109.14682 [cs.GR]
             (or arXiv:2109.14682v1 [cs.GR] for this version)

Submission history

From: Kerry A. Seitz Jr. [view email]
[v1] Wed, 29 Sep 2021 19:36:57 UTC (2,987 KB)
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