GPU Gems 2: Programming Techniques For High-Performance Graphics And General-Purpose Computation

The first volume of GPU Gems was conceived in the spring of 2003, soon after the arrival of the first generation of fully programmable GPUs. The resulting book was released less than a year later and quickly became a best seller, providing a snapshot of the best ideas for making the most of the capabilities of the latest programmable graphics hardware.
GPU programming is a rapidly changing field, and the time is already ripe for a sequel. In the handful of years since programmable graphics processors first became available, they have become faster and more flexible at an incredible pace. Early programmable GPUs supported programmability only at the vertex level, while today complex per-pixel programs are common. A year ago, real-time GPU programs were typically tens of instructions long, while this year’s GPUs handle complex programs hundreds of instructions long and still render at interactive rates. Programmable graphics has even transcended the PC and is rapidly spreading to consoles, handheld gaming devices, and mobile phones.
Until recently, performance-conscious developers might have considered writing their GPU programs in assembly language. These days, however, high-level GPU programming languages are ubiquitous. It is extremely rare for developers to bother writing assembly for GPUs anymore, thanks both to improvements in compilers and to the rapidly increasing capabilities of GPUs. (In contrast, it took many more years before game developers switched from writing their games in CPU assembly language to using higher-level languages.)
This sort of rapid change makes a “gems”-style book a natural fit for assembling the state of the art and disseminating it to the developer community. Featuring chapters written by acknowledged experts, GPU Gems 2 provides broad coverage of the most exciting new ideas in the field.