- vulkan extension that allows progress markers to be inserted into the Vulkan command stream
- these can be used to detect the range of draw commands that have caused a GPU device error
- a short overview of how it is used in X-Plane
![vulkan_gpu_debug.png](https://www.jendrikillner.com/img/posts/graphics-programming-weekly-80/vulkan_gpu_debug.png&key=2c366b33bcb647be65681fae947e43e2f4c57d3690b952628f46bfe2eb474adb)
- a brief overview of the rasterization process
- look at the logical rendering pipeline model
- presents the different components that are used to implement pipeline in hardware
- implementation details about the different stages
![GPU_architectures.png](https://www.jendrikillner.com/img/posts/graphics-programming-weekly-80/GPU_architectures.png&key=503684a9870d3d2c1c862fea14e74f5a636990596c10b420f77537c350257eff)
- Ray Tracing Gems is now also available as a free Kindle version
![ray_tracing_gems.jpg](https://www.jendrikillner.com/img/posts/graphics-programming-weekly-80/ray_tracing_gems.jpg&key=080081c8e5e72083bc33c907e9089ac7234bb1cfcd05031de47344968d88ddce)
- presents an overview of the general flow of a frame of the game
- a more detailed look at the acceleration structures used for the raytraced GI implementation
![AccStruct2.png](https://www.jendrikillner.com/img/posts/graphics-programming-weekly-80/AccStruct2.png&key=1839a8d2447a48c6481dcb03479364c3e16c388642307905ddc5455d2e9dde7a)
- looks at the composition of transparent objects, lens flares and at terrain tessellation
- presents more images from the acceleration structures and problems discovered with it
![LensFlareComposite-1-768x436.png](https://www.jendrikillner.com/img/posts/graphics-programming-weekly-80/LensFlareComposite-1-768x436.png&key=8422df0f466ff023be7baaae315ed2fce4d83498adeae27e2c23f88ee3a5a466)
- Microsoft released the engineering specification for Direct3D 11 and 12 including DXR
![D3D11_3_TriRast.png](https://www.jendrikillner.com/img/posts/graphics-programming-weekly-80/D3D11_3_TriRast.png&key=dc3e01017786b54dc0988921c0e41e884abc36e0fcecc311b76340ba52dc542d)
- all GDC content from Nvidia is now available for download (free login required)
![NVIDIA-logo-BL.jpg](https://www.jendrikillner.com/img/posts/graphics-programming-weekly-80/NVIDIA-logo-BL.jpg&key=aa6ef44fa90a02c778b944edc8d97530e51e246a95cf3c842dcd9ad2c9943c22)
- shows which tools are available to look at the shader disassembly for AMD GPUs
- presents the instructions generated for a simple shader and overview of some of the instructions used
- shows the effect of code changes to the code generation
![gcn_logo.png](https://www.jendrikillner.com/img/posts/graphics-programming-weekly-80/gcn_logo.png&key=fabc7c024c09f7742ff6d12aabc89523f946d2382184c3348222e05d629d9cec)
- preprint of I3D paper that will be presented in May
- AO calculations are split into large-scale interactions based on sphere approximations
- finer details are created using linear interpolation from key points on the spheres
- both components are trained against ground truth data
![object_space_ambient_occlusion.png](https://www.jendrikillner.com/img/posts/graphics-programming-weekly-80/object_space_ambient_occlusion.png&key=81cd798ab1456d244ddaddb718003b44605c21f826431e6665f513cfdf212587)
- overview of the latest extensions added to Vulkan on Nvidia GPUs
- mesh shader motivation, execution model and how to use them
- barycentric coordinates extension
- subgroup overview and tensor core access
- texture space shading
- derivatives in compute shaders
![mesh_shading.png](https://www.jendrikillner.com/img/posts/graphics-programming-weekly-80/mesh_shading.png&key=9159f48449bba9664e391d4c97a0c60df4b30d497d7609e9fcfccced8e693c7b)
- discusses the authors’ thoughts about abstraction levels in graphics APIs
- presents the motivation for the design of the granite engine API
![vulkan.png](https://www.jendrikillner.com/img/posts/graphics-programming-weekly-80/vulkan.png&key=361e81fc6827bec3b30aac0108e8c98c8f9e513d76b1fd1299feca5cd8e176a6)
Thanks to Cort Stratton for support of this series.
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