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The High-Level Shader Language [1] or High-Level Shading Language [2] (HLSL) is a proprietary shading language developed by Microsoft for the Direct3D 9 API to augment the shader assembly language, and went on to become the required shading language for the unified shader model of Direct3D 10 and higher.
The shader assembly language in Direct3D 8 and 9 is the main programming language for vertex and pixel shaders in Shader Model 1.0/1.1, 2.0, and 3.0. It is a direct representation of the intermediate shader bytecode which is passed to the graphics driver for execution.
Pixel shaders range from simply always outputting the same color, to applying a lighting value, to doing bump mapping, shadows, specular highlights, translucency and other phenomena. They can alter the depth of the fragment (for Z-buffering), or output more than one color if multiple render targets are active. In 3D graphics, a pixel shader ...
One of the key features introduced in DirectX 9 was Shader Model 2.0, which included Pixel Shader 2.0 and Vertex Shader 2.0. These allowed for more complex and realistic graphics rendering. It also brought much needed performance improvements through better hardware acceleration capabilities, and better utilization of GPU resources.
Pixel pipelines Shader model (vertex/pixel) API support [4] Memory bandwidth DVMT Hardware acceleration Direct3D OpenGL OpenCL MPEG-2 VC-1 AVC; Extreme Graphics 2002 Desktop 845G 845GE 845GL 845GV Brookdale 2562 200 2 3.0 (SW) / No 6.0 (full) 9.0 (some features, no hardware shaders) 1.3 ES 1.1 Linux: No 2.1 64 MC No No 2001 Mobile 830M 830MG ...
[1] "10 Level 9" feature levels contain a subset of the Direct3D 10/11 API [9] and require shaders to be written in HLSL conforming to Shader Model 4.0 4_0_LEVEL_9_x compiler profiles, and not in the actual "shader assembly" language [10] of Shader Model 1.1/2.0; SM 3.0 (vs_3_0/ps_3_0) has been omitted deliberately in Direct3D 10 Level 9. [3]
Direct3D was not considered to be user friendly, but as of DirectX version 8.1, many usability problems were resolved. Direct3D 8 contained many powerful 3D graphics features, such as vertex shaders, pixel shaders, fog, bump mapping and texture mapping.
The GeForce 7800 GTX supported the highest specification DirectX 9 vertex and pixel shaders, at the time: Version 3.0. It was natively a PCI Express chip. SLI support had been retained and improved from the previous generation. According to PC World, the 7800 GTX was "one of the most complex processors ever designed".