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The unified shader model uses the same hardware resources for both vertex and fragment processing. In the field of 3D computer graphics, the unified shader model (known in Direct3D 10 as "Shader Model 4.0") refers to a form of shader hardware in a graphical processing unit (GPU) where all of the shader stages in the rendering pipeline (geometry, vertex, pixel, etc.) have the same capabilities.
3D shaders act on 3D models or other geometry but may also access the colors and textures used to draw the model or mesh. Vertex shaders are the oldest type of 3D shader, generally making modifications on a per-vertex basis. Newer geometry shaders can generate new vertices from within the shader.
The set of APIs used to compile, link, and pass parameters to GLSL programs are specified in three OpenGL extensions, and became part of core OpenGL as of OpenGL Version 2.0. The API was expanded with geometry shaders in OpenGL 3.2, tessellation shaders in OpenGL 4.0 and compute shaders in OpenGL 4.3. These OpenGL APIs are found in the extensions: