A talk given to my fellow Cambridge computer science students on January 27th 2021, as part of the yearly Churchill College Computer Science Talks series.

The recording unfortunately starts a few seconds after the beginning of the talk, but it doesn’t impact it too much.

Abstract:

The visuals of video games and films have deep influences on our culture, from Shrek to Garfield Racing. The modern history of real-time rendering is deeply tied to the architecture of GPUs and what they allow us to do. How have our approaches to rendering changed over time, and what may the future hold?

In this talk, I will compare the Forward and Deferred rendering pipelines, from both a technical standpoint as well as explaining the history behind them. I will also briefly explore what future developments may look like in the industry.

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