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A scene containing several different 2D HLSL shaders. Distortion of the statue is achieved purely physically, while the texture of the rectangular frame beside it is based on color intensity. The square in the background has been transformed and rotated. The partial transparency and reflection of the water in the foreground are added by a shader applied finally to the entire scene.

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.

HLSL is analogous to the GLSL shading language used with the OpenGL standard. It is very similar to the Nvidia Cg shading language, as it was developed alongside it.^[3] HLSL shaders can enable profound speed and detail increases as well as many special effects in both 2d and 3d computer graphics.^{[citation needed]}

HLSL programs come in five forms: pixel shaders (fragment in GLSL), vertex shaders, geometry shaders, compute shaders and tessellation shaders (Hull and Domain shaders). A vertex shader is executed for each vertex that is submitted by the application, and is primarily responsible for transforming the vertex from object space to view space, generating texture coordinates, and calculating lighting coefficients such as the vertex's tangent, binormal and normal vectors. When a group of vertices (normally 3, to form a triangle) come through the vertex shader, their output position is interpolated to form pixels within its area; this process is known as rasterisation. Each of these pixels comes through the pixel shader, whereby the resultant screen colour is calculated.

Optionally, an application using a Direct3D 10/11/12 interface and Direct3D 10/11/12 hardware may also specify a geometry shader. This shader takes as its input some vertices of a primitive (triangle/line/point) and uses this data to generate/degenerate (or tessellate) additional primitives or to change the type of primitives, which are each then sent to the rasterizer.

D3D11.3 and D3D12 introduced Shader Model 5.1^[4] and later 6.0.^[5]

Shader model comparison

GPUs listed are the hardware that first supported the given specifications. Manufacturers generally support all lower shader models through drivers. Note that games may claim to require a certain DirectX version, but don't necessarily require a GPU confirming to the full specification of that version, as developers can use a higher DirectX API version to target lower-Direct3D-spec hardware; for instance DirectX 9 exposes features of DirectX7-level hardware that DirectX7 did not, targeting their fixed-function T&L pipeline.

Pixel shader comparison

• 
  PS 1.0 = Unreleased 3dfx Rampage, DirectX 8.


• 
  PS 1.1 = GeForce 3, DirectX 8.


• 
  PS 1.2 = 3Dlabs Wildcat VP, DirectX 8.0a.


• 
  PS 1.3 = GeForce 4 Ti, DirectX 8.0a.


• 
  PS 1.4 = Radeon 8500-9250, DirectX 8.1.


• 
  PS 2.0 = Shader Model 2, Radeon 9500-9800/X300-X600, DirectX 9.


• 
  PS 2.0a = GeForce FX/PCX-optimized model, DirectX 9.0a.


• 
  PS 2.0b = Radeon X700-X850 shader model, DirectX 9.0b.


• 
  PS 3.0 = Shader Model 3.0, Radeon X1000 and GeForce 6, DirectX 9.0c.


• 
  PS 4.0 = Shader Model 4.0, Radeon HD 2000 and GeForce 8, DirectX 10.


• 
  PS 4.1 = Shader Model 4.1, Radeon HD 3000 and GeForce 200, DirectX 10.1.


• 
  PS 5.0 = Shader Model 5.0, Radeon HD 5000 and GeForce 400, DirectX 11.


• 
  PS 5.1 = Shader Model 5.1, GCN 1.0 and Fermi+, DirectX 12 (11_0 and 11_1) with WDDM 2.0.


• 
  PS 6.0 = Shader Model 6.0, GCN 2.0+ and Maxwell 2+, DirectX 12 (12_0 and 12_1) with WDDM 2.1.


• 
  PS 6.1 = Shader Model 6.1, GCN 2.0+ and Maxwell 2+, DirectX 12 (12_0 and 12_1) with WDDM 2.3.

"32 + 64" for Executed Instructions means "32 texture instructions and 64 arithmetic instructions."

Vertex shader comparison

• 
  VS 1.0 = Unreleased 3dfx Rampage w/SAGE coprocessor, DirectX 8.


• 
  VS 1.1 = GeForce 3 and Radeon 8500, DirectX 8.


• 
  VS 2.0 = Shader Model 2.0 specification, Radeon 9500-9800/X300-X600, DirectX 9.


• 
  VS 2.0a = GeForce FX/PCX-optimized model, DirectX 9.0a.


• 
  VS 3.0 = Shader Model 3.0, Radeon X1000 and GeForce 6, DirectX 9.0c.


• 
  VS 4.0 = Shader Model 4.0, Radeon HD 2000 and GeForce 8, DirectX 10.


• 
  VS 4.1 = Shader Model 4.1, Radeon HD 3000 and GeForce 200, DirectX 10.1.


• 
  VS 5.0 = Shader Model 5.0, Radeon HD 5000 and GeForce 400, DirectX 11.


• 
  VS 5.1 = Shader Model 5.1, GCN 1.0 and Fermi+, DirectX 12 (11_0 and 11_1) with WDDM 2.0.


• 
  VS 6.0 = Shader Model 6.0, GCN 2.0+ and Maxwell 2+, DirectX 12 (12_0 and 12_1) with WDDM 2.1.


• 
  VS 6.1 = Shader Model 6.1, GCN 2.0+ and Maxwell 2+, DirectX 12 (12_0 and 12_1) with WDDM 2.3.

See also

• DirectX


• Direct3D


• Cg (programming language)


• GLSL


• Shading language

Footnotes

External links

• 
  Programming Guide for HLSL, from Microsoft


• 
  Introduction to the DirectX 9 High Level Shading Language, (ATI) AMD developer central


• Riemer's HLSL Introduction & Tutorial (includes sample code)


• HLSL Introduction