A piece of hardware, such as a graphics card, that can render graphics. In DirectX, this is represented by an IDXGIAdapter interface.
Alpha Blending
A technique used to achieve transparency or translucency by blending the color of a pixel with the color of the background pixels based on an alpha value.
API (Application Programming Interface)
A set of definitions, protocols, and tools for building software. DirectX provides a graphics API for interacting with graphics hardware.
B
Back Buffer
The surface that the application draws to, which is not currently being displayed on the screen. After drawing is complete, the back buffer is swapped with the front buffer.
Buffer
A region of memory used to store data, often for graphics operations like vertex data, index data, or frame buffers.
C
Cache
A small, fast memory that stores frequently accessed data to speed up retrieval. Graphics hardware has various caches for textures, shaders, and vertices.
Clipping
The process of discarding parts of a primitive (like a triangle) that lie outside a specified viewing volume or screen area.
Color Buffer
A buffer that stores the color information for each pixel on the screen.
Constant Buffer
A type of buffer used in HLSL (High-Level Shading Language) to pass constant data (e.g., transformation matrices, light properties) to shaders.
CPU (Central Processing Unit)
The primary component of a computer that performs most of the processing inside the computer. Graphics commands are typically sent from the CPU to the GPU.
Culling
A process to eliminate geometry that will not be visible to the camera, improving rendering performance. Common types include back-face culling and frustum culling.
D
Depth Buffer (Z-Buffer)
A buffer that stores the depth information for each pixel. It's used for hidden surface removal, ensuring that objects closer to the camera obscure objects further away.
Device
The primary object in DirectX that represents the graphics adapter and provides methods for creating resources and rendering.
Direct3D
The component of DirectX that provides 3D graphics rendering capabilities.
DirectCompute
The component of DirectX that allows the GPU to be used for general-purpose computation.
DirectML
A hardware-accelerated machine learning library for Windows, built on DirectX.
DirectX
A collection of APIs for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms.
DPP (DirectX Pipeline)
Refers to the series of stages that data goes through from being an input to a rendered pixel on screen.
F
Face
In 3D graphics, a surface that forms part of a polygon or mesh. Typically represented by three vertices forming a triangle.
Frame Buffer
A region of memory that holds the image currently displayed on the screen. Composed of the front buffer and back buffer.
Front Buffer
The buffer that is currently being displayed on the screen.
Frustum
A geometric volume representing the visible area of a camera or viewer. Objects outside the frustum are typically not rendered.
G
Geometry Shader
A shader stage that can process entire primitives (points, lines, triangles) and can generate new primitives.
GPU (Graphics Processing Unit)
A specialized electronic circuit designed to rapidly manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device.
Graphics Pipeline
The series of processing stages that data goes through to be rendered on the screen, from input geometry to pixel output.
H
HLSL (High-Level Shading Language)
A proprietary shading language used by Microsoft's DirectX API to write shaders.
I
Index Buffer
A buffer containing indices that define the order in which vertices from a vertex buffer should be used to draw primitives.
Input Assembler
The first stage of the graphics pipeline, responsible for gathering vertex data from vertex buffers and index buffers and forming primitives.
Instance
A single drawing of a mesh. Instancing allows multiple copies of the same object to be drawn with a single draw call, often with different transformations or per-instance data.
L
Lighting
The simulation of how light interacts with surfaces to create shades and highlights, affecting the visual appearance of objects.
M
Mesh
A collection of vertices, edges, and faces that define the shape of a 3D object.
Multisampling (MSAA)
An anti-aliasing technique that samples multiple points within each pixel to reduce jagged edges.
N
Normal
A vector perpendicular to a surface at a given point, used for lighting calculations and determining surface orientation.
P
Pixel Shader (Fragment Shader)
A shader stage responsible for determining the final color of each pixel.
Polygon
A 2D shape defined by a sequence of connected line segments forming a closed loop. In 3D graphics, polygons (usually triangles) are used to approximate surfaces.
Primitive
The basic geometric element used for rendering, such as a point, line, or triangle.
R
Rasterization
The process of converting vector graphics into a raster image (a grid of pixels).
Render Target
A texture that can be written to by the graphics pipeline, often used for off-screen rendering or post-processing effects.
Rendering
The process of generating an image from a 2D or 3D model by means of computer programs.
Resource
Any data that the GPU can access, such as textures, buffers, or samplers.
S
Sampler
An object that controls how texture data is sampled (e.g., filtering modes, wrap modes).
Shader
A small program that runs on the GPU to perform specific graphics operations, such as transforming vertices or determining pixel colors.
Shader Model
A version of the shader language and associated features supported by a particular version of DirectX or graphics hardware.
Staging Texture
A special type of texture that can be accessed by both the CPU and GPU, often used for transferring data between them.
Stencil Buffer
A buffer that stores integer values for each pixel, used for more advanced rendering effects like masking or special stencil-based operations.
T
Texture
An image or pattern that is applied to the surface of a 3D model to add detail and realism.
Texture Mapping
The process of applying a texture to a 3D model.
Tessellation Shader
A shader stage that dynamically subdivides geometry to add detail.
Transformations
Mathematical operations (translation, rotation, scaling) applied to geometric data to position, orient, and size objects in 3D space.
U
Uniform Buffer
Similar to a constant buffer, used to pass uniform data to shaders.
UAV (Unordered Access View)
Allows shaders to read from and write to resources without regard to the graphics pipeline stage order.
V
Vertex
A point in 3D space, typically defined by its coordinates. Vertices are used to define the boundaries of geometric primitives.
Vertex Buffer
A buffer containing vertex data, such as position, color, texture coordinates, and normals.
Vertex Shader
A shader stage responsible for transforming vertices from object space to clip space, and for interpolating vertex attributes.
Viewport
A rectangular area on the screen where the rendered image is displayed. It defines the mapping from normalized device coordinates to screen coordinates.
W
World Matrix
A transformation matrix used to position, rotate, and scale objects in the 3D world space.