Particle rendering using geometry shader

Abstract

The importance of visual elements in video games is increasing, and players demand high quality graphics. To reach more of the target market, game developers need to maintain good performance while still delivering high quality graphical effects. Game developers want to use the most efficient ways to render game graphics, specifically particle systems, one of the most resource intensive elements in a game. Geometry shader is a new technology that was proposed to offer the right capability in rendering particle systems. The aim of this paper is to find out whether geometry shader is more efficient to render particle systems by analyzing the performance differences and resource consumption between rendering particle systems using a CPU and geometry shader. These research experiments support the power of a GPU-based geometry shader approach to render particle systems compared to the CPU rendering of particle systems. Geometry shader is shown to be effective and provides sufficient benefits for optimizing the geometry generations. However, the benefits of the geometry shader approach diminish when the particle size increases and the screen resolution gets higher.