This will rewire how you think about rendering optimization
-
Jan Mróz
Proposed by Jan Mróz
Visit resource ↗Description
This Procedural Pixels article by Jan Mróz presents a teaching mental model of the GPU rasterization pipeline for everyday optimization. It grew from a LinkedIn post into a free page with a downloadable PDF slide deck.
The slides walk command submission, vertex work, rasterization, depth and stencil, and pixel shading as a logical story that is not hardware-accurate but useful for reading profiler data and choosing optimization paths.
Advanced Unity graphics programmers and technical artists who already profile and write HLSL benefit most. The focus is reasoning, not API tutorials.
The five-to-ten-minute post on proceduralpixels.com is standalone. Procedural Pixels is often linked in Unity rendering circles for measured optimization writing.
Related resources
- A Trip Through the Graphics Pipeline (2011)
A 13-part series explaining the D3D/OpenGL graphics pipeline as implemented on real GPUs - command processor, vertex processing, rasterization, depth/stencil, pixel shaders,…
100% match · <general><advanced><blog><command><depth><paths><pipeline><pixel> - Drawing Thousands of Meshes with DrawMeshInstanced / Indirect (Toqoz)
Toqoz's November 2019 toqoz.fyi post walks through drawing very large mesh counts in Unity with Graphics.DrawMeshInstanced and Graphics.DrawMeshInstancedIndirect, with C# samples,
100% match · <shaders><advanced><blog><artists><data><depth><gpu><model> - Partial Derivatives (ddx, ddy, fwidth) (Ronja)
Ronja’s tutorial 046 demystifies HLSL partial derivatives: ddx and ddy measure how a value changes across 2×2 pixel quads, and fwidth combines them for screen-space-aware filtering. Demonstrates greyscale debug views, then builds an anti-aliased step (aaStep) that widens cutoffs by one pixel’s gradient - reducing jaggy fire, toon bands, and procedural edges versus raw step(). Includes a scrolling noise fire shader comparing step, aaStep, and smoothstep.
100% match · <shaders><blog><artists><gpu><pixel><programmers><technical><useful> - Nanite + Reyes
Technical blog post by Brian Karis on Graphic Rants describing how Unreal Nanite gains Reyes-style tessellation for displacement without changing Nanite mesh data.
100% match · <shaders><advanced><blog><data><gpu><programmers><rasterization><teaching> - Nanite Tessellation
Nanite Tessellation is the February 2026 opening post of Brian Karis's Graphic Rants series on Nanite Dynamic Tessellation (also called Nanite Dynamic Displacement), the Unreal…
100% match · <optimization><shaders><advanced><artists><depth><pixel><programmers><technical> - Early-bird deadline for the Shading Languages Symposium 2026
Early-bird deadline for the Shading Languages Symposium 2026 points to the Khronos Group page for the in-person symposium held 12-13 February 2026 in San Diego, right after…
100% match · <general><shaders><artists><programmers><shading><slides><technical><useful> - New GPU Profiler and RHI Submission Pipeline | Unreal Fest Stockholm 2025
New GPU Profiler and RHI Submission Pipeline | Unreal Fest Stockholm 2025 is an Unreal Fest talk by Luke Thatcher of Epic's RHI team, published on the Unreal Engine YouTube…
100% match · <optimization><advanced><command><data><gpu><pipeline><profiler><submission> - Introduction to Clustered Meshlet Optimization
This Simplygon product blog post by Jesper Tingvall introduces clustered meshlets as a Simplygon optimization feature for mesh-shader oriented engines.
100% match · <optimization><advanced><blog><artists><data><gpu><programmers><technical> - Ten Years of D3D12
Ten Years of D3D12 is a September 2025 long-form blog post by Matt Pettineo (MJP) reflecting on a decade of Direct3D 12 API and HLSL changes since the Windows 10 launch. It…
100% match · <optimization><shaders><advanced><blog><depth><gpu><programmers><shading> - Series Summary and What's Next - Game Optimization - Episode 11
Series Summary and What's Next - Game Optimization - Episode 11 is a YouTube wrap-up by Ben Cloward that recaps a ten-episode Unreal and Unity optimization series before…
100% match · <optimization><artists><gpu><programmers><technical><useful><work><unity> - Optimizing Individual Draw Calls - Game Optimization - Episode 9
[video] Optimizing Individual Draw Calls - Game Optimization - Episode 9 is an approximately 52-minute YouTube lesson by Ben Cloward in his Game Performance Optimization series.
100% match · <optimization><gpu><pipeline><pixel><useful><vertex><work><unity> - gpu conditionals - 2025
gpu conditionals - 2025 is a single technical article by Inigo Quilez on his iquilezles.org site about how GPUs handle simple conditionals in shaders. It corrects a common claim…
100% match · <optimization><shaders><advanced><blog><choosing><gpu><paths><technical> - The Graphics Pipeline and Rendering Types - Game Optimization - Episode 2
The Graphics Pipeline and Rendering Types - Game Optimization - Episode 2 is a YouTube fundamentals video by Ben Cloward that opens his Game Optimization series with pipeline…
100% match · <general><artists><optimization><pipeline><pixel><programmers><rasterization><shading> - Introducing the MIP Explorer
Introducing the MIP Explorer is a technical blog post by Hauke Thiessen, second in a German Dev Days 2025 series on shrinking game textures, that presents an open Python tool for…
100% match · <optimization><blog><artists><choosing><data><pixel><programmers><technical> - How to optimize your Niagaras - Paweł Charzyński || 11Bit Studios ||
How to optimize your Niagaras is a Game Industry Conference 2024 talk by Pawel Charzynski of 11Bit Studios on Unreal Engine Niagara VFX optimization from Frostpunk 2…
100% match · <optimization><shaders><artists><gpu><programmers><slides><technical><useful> - The Art Of Packing Data
The Art Of Packing Data is a long technical blog post by redorav on The Code Corsair.
100% match · <optimization><shaders><blog><choosing><data><gpu><model><paths> - RE ENGINE Meshlet Rendering Pipeline
This REAC 2025 conference talk by Capcom rendering engineer Hitoshi Mishima covers the meshlet rendering pipeline introduced in RE ENGINE for Dragon's Dogma 2 and Monster Hunter…
100% match · <optimization><advanced><deck><gpu><paths><pdf><pipeline><programmers> - REAC 2025 RE ENGINE Meshlet Rendering Pipeline
A REAC 2025 talk by Hitoshi Mishima of Capcom on the RE ENGINE meshlet rendering pipeline used in Dragon's Dogma 2 and Monster Hunter Wilds.
100% match · <optimization><advanced><depth><gpu><paths><pipeline><rasterization><shading> - Texel Splatting
Technical writeup by Dylan Ebert on texel splatting, a technique for perspective-stable 3D pixel art that renders geometry into cubemaps from fixed probe origins and splats each…
98% match · <shaders><advanced><blog><depth><gpu><pixel><programmers><shading> - 2D Grass Rendering with WebGPU Compute Shaders
Technical walkthrough from the Jarl Devs Team of a fully procedural 2D pixel-art grass renderer driven by two WebGPU/WGSL compute passes that regenerate, depth-sort, and shade…
96% match · <shaders><blog><depth><gpu><pipeline><pixel><programmers><technical>