35 lines
1.5 KiB
Markdown
35 lines
1.5 KiB
Markdown
# Compute Shader Heightmap
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This demo project gives an example of how to use *compute shaders* in Godot.
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A compute shader is a piece of code that runs on the GPU and is written in GLSL
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(as opposed to the
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[Godot shader language](https://docs.godotengine.org/en/latest/tutorials/shaders/shader_reference/index.html)).
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A compute shader can be used to take advantage of the GPU's ability to perform
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massively parallel operations faster than a CPU. This demo can generate the
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heightmap of an island from a noise texture, both on the CPU and the GPU. You
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can try both options to compare the time it takes to generate the heightmap on
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the CPU and GPU respectively.
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For smaller noise textures, the CPU will often be faster, but the larger the
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gains are by using the GPU. On a PC with a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 and
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11th-generation Intel Core i7 processor, the compute shader was tested to be
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faster for textures 1024×1024 and larger.
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The dimensions of the image can be set on the exported **Dimensions** property
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on the main scene. By default, it's set to 2048, which creates a 2048×2048
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heightmap.
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> **Note**
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>
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> The shader code has been structured to be followed step-by-step by the user,
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> and may not necessarily represent best practices. The CPU code is also less
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> optimized than it could be. This is to reflect the GPU code as much as
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> possible. Besides the use of the GPU, no multithreading is used.
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Languages: GDScript, GLSL
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Renderer: Forward Mobile
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