Shader

In computer graphics, a shader is a programmable operation which is applied to data as it moves through the rendering pipeline. Shaders act on data such as vertices and primitives, generate or morph geometries and fragments, and calculate the colors in a rendered image. Shaders can execute a wide variety of operations. In modern real-time computer graphics, shaders are run on graphics processing units (GPUs) - dedicated hardware which provide parallel execution of programs. Because image rendering is an embarrassingly parallel problem (having an Amdahl's index of one), shaders benefit greatly from parallel computing, such as SIMD hardware. The drive for faster rendering has produced highly parallel processors, like GPUs, which are now used for general-purpose computing. Shaders used for general purposes are commonly called compute shaders.