Editing Shader (section)

==== Primitive and Mesh shaders ====
Circa 2017, the [[AMD Vega]] [[microarchitecture]] added support for a new shader stage—primitive shaders—somewhat akin to compute shaders with access to the data necessary to process geometry.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.trustedreviews.com/news/amd-vega-specs-performance-release-date-technology-explained|title=Radeon RX Vega Revealed: AMD promises 4K gaming performance for $499 - Trusted Reviews|date=July 31, 2017}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://techreport.com/review/31224/the-curtain-comes-up-on-amds-vega-architecture/|title=The curtain comes up on AMD's Vega architecture|date=January 5, 2017}}</ref>  

Nvidia introduced mesh and task shaders with its [[Turing (microarchitecture)|Turing microarchitecture]] in 2018 which are also modelled after compute shaders.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://devblogs.nvidia.com/nvidia-turing-architecture-in-depth/|title=NVIDIA Turing Architecture In-Depth|date=September 14, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://devblogs.nvidia.com/introduction-turing-mesh-shaders/|title=Introduction to Turing Mesh Shaders|date=September 17, 2018}}</ref> Nvidia Turing is the world's first GPU microarchitecture that supports mesh shading through DirectX 12 Ultimate API, several months before Ampere RTX 30 series was released.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/news/directx-12-ultimate-game-ready-driver/ | title=DirectX 12 Ultimate Game Ready Driver Released; Also Includes Support for 9 New G-SYNC Compatible Gaming Monitors }}</ref>

In 2020, AMD and Nvidia released [[RDNA 2]] and [[Ampere (microarchitecture)|Ampere]] microarchitectures which both support mesh shading through [[DirectX#DirectX 12 Ultimate|DirectX 12 Ultimate]].<ref>{{Cite web|date=2020-03-19|title=Announcing DirectX 12 Ultimate|url=https://devblogs.microsoft.com/directx/announcing-directx-12-ultimate/|access-date=2021-05-25|website=DirectX Developer Blog|language=en-US}}</ref> These mesh shaders allow the GPU to handle more complex algorithms, offloading more work from the CPU to the GPU, and in algorithm intense rendering, increasing the frame rate of or number of triangles in a scene by an order of magnitude.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2021-05-21|title=Realistic Lighting in Justice with Mesh Shading|url=https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/realistic-lighting-in-justice-with-mesh-shading/|access-date=2021-05-25|website=NVIDIA Developer Blog|language=en-US}}</ref> Intel announced that Intel Arc Alchemist GPUs shipping in Q1 2022 will support mesh shaders.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.anandtech.com/show/16895/a-sneak-peek-at-intels-xe-hpg-gpu-architecture|title=Intel Architecture Day 2021: A Sneak Peek At The Xe-HPG GPU Architecture|first=Ryan|last=Smith|website=www.anandtech.com}}</ref>