Graphics API Reference

Graphics API Reference - Overview

Welcome to the comprehensive API reference for the Microsoft Graphics API. This documentation provides detailed information on all aspects of graphics programming, from basic rendering primitives to advanced shader development and pipeline configuration.

Core Concepts

Rendering Pipeline

Understand the stages involved in transforming 3D geometry into a 2D image on the screen.

The rendering pipeline is a series of processing steps that a graphics card performs to render an image. Key stages include vertex processing, tessellation, geometry processing, rasterization, and pixel processing.

Learn More →

Shading Models

Explore different techniques for calculating the color of surfaces based on lighting and material properties.

Shading models determine how light interacts with surfaces to produce realistic visual effects. This includes Phong, Blinn-Phong, physically based rendering (PBR), and custom shader logic.

Learn More →

Key API Components

Device Object

Represents the graphics hardware adapter and provides access to its capabilities and resources.

The Device object is the primary interface for interacting with the graphics subsystem. It is used for creating resources like buffers, textures, and shaders, as well as for issuing rendering commands.

Key Methods:

  • CreateBuffer(...)
  • CreateTexture(...)
  • CreateShader(...)
  • CreatePipelineState(...)

CommandList

A sequential list of graphics commands to be executed by the GPU.

Commands are recorded into a CommandList and then submitted to the GPU for execution. This allows for asynchronous execution and optimization of rendering workloads.

Key Methods:

  • SetPipelineState(...)
  • SetVertexBuffer(...)
  • DrawIndexed(...)

Buffer Objects

Generic data containers for vertices, indices, constant data, or structured data.

Buffers are fundamental data structures used to store information that the GPU needs. This includes vertex data for meshes, index data for drawing, and constant buffers for parameters passed to shaders.

Common Types:

  • VertexBuffer
  • IndexBuffer
  • ConstantBuffer

Getting Started

Explore the following sections to begin your journey with the Graphics API: