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Compute shaders

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Compute shaders are shaderA program that runs on the GPU. More info
See in Glossary
programs that run on the GPU, outside of the normal rendering pipeline.

They can be used for massively parallel GPGPU algorithms, or to accelerate parts of game rendering. In order to efficiently use them, an in-depth knowledge of GPU architectures and parallel algorithms is often needed; as well as knowledge of DirectCompute, OpenGL Compute, CUDA, or OpenCL.

Compute shaders in Unity closely match DirectX 11 DirectCompute technology. Platforms where compute shaders work:

  • Windows and Windows Store, with a DirectX 11 or DirectX 12 graphics API and Shader Model 5.0 GPU

  • macOS and iOS using Metal graphics API

  • Android, Linux and Windows platforms with Vulkan API

  • Modern OpenGL platforms (OpenGL 4.3 on Linux or Windows; OpenGL ES 3.1 on Android). Note that Mac OS X does not support OpenGL 4.3

  • Modern consoles

Compute shader support can be queried runtime using SystemInfo.supportsComputeShaders.

Compute shader Assets

Similar to shader assets, compute shader assets are files in your project. with a .compute file extension. They are written in DirectX 11 style HLSL language, with a minimal number of #pragma compilation directives to indicate which functions to compile as compute shader kernels.

Here’s a basic example of a compute shader file, which fills the output texture with red:

// test.compute

#pragma kernel FillWithRed

RWTexture2D<float4> res;

[numthreads(1,1,1)]
void FillWithRed (uint3 dtid : SV_DispatchThreadID)
{
    res[dtid.xy] = float4(1,0,0,1);
}

The language is standard DX11 HLSL, with an additional #pragma kernel FillWithRed directive. One compute shader Asset file must contain at least onecompute kernel that can be invoked, and that function is indicated by the #pragma directive. There can be more kernels in the file; just add multiple #pragma kernel lines.

When using multiple #pragma kernel lines, note that comments of the style // text are not permitted on the same line as the #pragma kernel directives, and cause compilation errors if used.

The #pragma kernel line can optionally be followed by a number of preprocessor macros to define while compiling that kernel, for example:

#pragma kernel KernelOne SOME_DEFINE DEFINE_WITH_VALUE=1337
#pragma kernel KernelTwo OTHER_DEFINE
// ...

Invoking compute shaders

In your script, define a variable of ComputeShader type and assign a reference to the Asset. This allows you to invoke them with ComputeShader.Dispatch function. See Unity documentation on ComputeShader class for more details.

Closely related to compute shaders is a ComputeBuffer class, which defines arbitrary data buffer (“structured buffer” in DX11 lingo). Render TexturesA special type of Texture that is created and updated at runtime. To use them, first create a new Render Texture and designate one of your Cameras to render into it. Then you can use the Render Texture in a Material just like a regular Texture. More info
See in Glossary
can also be written into from compute shaders, if they have “random access” flag set (“unordered access view” in DX11). See RenderTexture.enableRandomWrite to learn more about this.

Texture samplers in compute shaders

Textures and samplers aren’t separate objects in Unity, so to use them in compute shaders you must follow one of the following Unity-specific rules:

  • Use the same name as the Texture name, with sampler at the beginning (for example, Texture2D MyTex; SamplerState samplerMyTex). In this case, the sampler is initialized to that Texture’s filter/wrap/aniso settings.

  • Use a predefined sampler. For this, the name has to have Linear or Point (for filter mode) and Clamp or Repeat (for wrap mode). For example, SamplerState MyLinearClampSampler creates a sampler that has Linear filter mode and Clamp wrap mode.

For more information, see documentation on Sampler States.

Cross-platform support

As with regular shaders, Unity is capable of translating compute shaders from HLSL to other shader languages. Therefore, for the easiest cross-platform builds, you should write compute shaders in HLSL. However, there are some factors that need to be considered when doing this.

Cross-platform best practices

DirectX 11 (DX11) supports many actions that are not supported on other platforms (such as Metal or OpenGL ES). Therefore, you should always ensure your shader has well-defined behavior on platforms that offer less support, rather than only on DX11. Here are few things to consider:

  • Out-of-bounds memory accesses are bad. DX11 might consistently return zero when reading, and read some writes without issues, but platforms that offer less support might crash the GPU when doing this. Watch out for DX11-specific hacks, buffer sizes not matching with multiple of your thread group size, trying to read neighboring data elements from the beginning or end of the buffer, and similar incompatibilities.

  • Initialize your resources. The contents of new buffers and Textures are undefined. Some platforms might provide all zeroes, but on others, there could be anything including NaNs.

  • Bind all the resources your compute shader declares. Even if you know for sure that the shader does not use resources in its current state because of branching, you must still ensure a resource is bound to it.

Platform-specific differences

  • Metal (for iOS and tvOS platforms) does not support atomic operations on Textures. Metal also does not support GetDimensions queries on buffers. Pass the buffer size info as constant to the shader if needed.
  • OpenGL ES 3.1 (for (Android, iOS, tvOS platforms) only guarantees support for 4 compute buffers at a time. Actual implementations typically support more, but in general if developing for OpenGL ES, you should consider grouping related data in structs rather than having each data item in its own buffer.
  • OpenGL (ES) and Vulkan require an image format qualifier for RWTextures<T> that are not write-only.
    Unity derives this qualifier from the type T in the angle-brackets. The format qualifier needs to match the GraphicsFormat/RenderTextureFormat of the RenderTexture that is bound to the RWTexture. The following table maps Unity RenderTexture GraphicsFormats and RenderTextureFormats to their corresponding HLSL type and image format qualifier:
GraphicsFormat RenderTextureFormat HLSL type GLSL image format qualifier
R32G32B32A32_SFloat ARGBFloat float4 rgba32f
R16G16B16A16_SFloat ARGBHalf min16float4/half4 rgba16f
R32G32_SFloat RGFloat float2 rg32f
R16G16_SFloat RGHalf min16float2/half2 rg16f
B10G11R11_UFloatPack32 RGB111110Float min10float3 r11f_g11g_b10f
R32_SFloat RFloat float r32f
R16_SFloat RHalf min16float/half r16f
R16G16B16A16_UNorm ARGB64 unorm min16float4/half4 rgba16
A2B10G10R10_UNormPack32 ARGB2101010 unorm min10float4 rgb10_a2
R8G8B8A8_UNorm ARGB32 unorm float4 rgba8
R16G16_UNorm RG32 unorm min16float2/half2 rg16
R8G8_UNorm RG16 unorm float2 rg8
R16_UNorm R16 unorm min16float/half r16
R8_UNorm R8 unorm float r8
R16G16B16A16_SNorm unsupported snorm min16float4/half4 rgba16_snorm
R8G8B8A8_SNorm unsupported snorm float4 rgba8_snorm
R16G16_SNorm unsupported snorm min16float2/half2 rg16_snorm
R8G8_SNorm unsupported snorm float2 rg8_snorm
R16_SNorm unsupported snorm min16float/half r16_snorm
R8_SNorm unsupported snorm float r8_snorm
R32G32B32A32_SInt ARGBInt int4 rgba32i
R16G16B16A16_SInt unsupported min16int4 rgba16i
R8G8B8A8_SInt unsupported min12int4 rgba8i
R32G32_SInt RGInt int2 rg32i
R16G16_SInt unsupported min16int2 rg16i
R8G8_SInt unsupported min12int2 rg8i
R32_SInt RInt int r32i
R16_SInt unsupported min16int r16i
R8_SInt unsupported min12int r8i
R32G32B32A32_UInt unsupported uint4 rgba32i
R16G16B16A16_UInt RGBAUShort min16uint4 rgba16ui
R8G8B8A8_UInt unsupported unsupported rgba8ui
R32G32_UInt unsupported uint2 rg32ui
R16G16_UInt unsupported min16uint2 rg16ui
R8G8_UInt unsupported unsupported rg8ui
R32_UInt unsupported uint r32ui
R16_UInt unsupported min16uint r16ui
R8_UInt unsupported unsupported r8ui
A2B10G10R10_UIntPack32 unsupported unsupported rgb10_a2ui

HLSL-only or GLSL-only compute shaders

Usually, compute shader files are written in HLSL, and compiled or translated into all necessary platforms automatically. However, it is possible to either prevent translation to other languages (that is, only keep HLSL platforms), or to write GLSL compute code manually.

The following information only applies to HLSL-only or GLSL-only compute shaders, not cross-platform builds. This is because this information can result in compute shader source being excluded from some platforms.

  • Compute shader source surrounded by CGPROGRAM and ENDCG keywords is not processed for non-HLSL platforms.

  • Compute shader source surrounded by GLSLPROGRAM and ENDGLSL keywords is treated as GLSL source, and emitted verbatim. This only works when targeting OpenGL or GLSL platforms. You should also note that while automatically translated shaders follow HLSL data layout on buffers, manually written GLSL shaders follow GLSL layout rules.

Variants and keywords

You can use keywords to produce multiple variants of compute shaders, the same as you can for graphics shaders.

For general information on variants, see Shader variantsA verion of a shader program that Unity generates according to a specific combination of shader keywords and their status. A Shader object can contain multiple shader variants. More info
See in Glossary
. For information on how to implement these features in compute shaders, see Declaring and using shader keywords in HLSL and the ComputeShader API documentation.

ComputeShader

Replacing shaders at runtime
Error and loading shaders
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