The GPU

🔺 Built from triangles

Everything in a 3D game or 3D map is built from many small triangles. The GPU's job is to place all those triangles and colour them, extremely fast.

🎨 Painting pixels

Your screen is made of tiny dots called pixels. A Full HD screen has about 2 million; a 4K screen has about four times as many — that's why 4K is heavier work.

🐜 Many small workers

A GPU has thousands of tiny cores that each colour a few pixels at the same time. Doing many small jobs in parallel is what makes graphics fast.

💡 Shading and light

Small programs called shaders add light, shadow and shine. Some GPUs do ray tracing — following how light really bounces — for realistic reflections, but it is heavy work.

🔍 Upscaling tricks

Techniques like DLSS/FSR render a smaller image then cleverly enlarge it, giving more frames per second for less work. Beyond games, GPUs also speed up video editing and AI.

Key points

• The GPU draws what you see on the screen.
• 3D scenes are built from many small triangles.
• The screen is made of pixels; 4K has about four times as many as Full HD.
• A GPU has thousands of tiny cores colouring pixels at the same time.
• Doing many small jobs at once is what makes graphics fast.
• Shaders add light and shadow; ray tracing follows real light — heavy work.
• GPUs also speed up video editing and AI, not just games.

Try it for real: Resolution test

• Open the display settings and note the screen resolution (e.g. 1920x1080).
• If you can, play a video or game and note how smooth it feels.
• Lower the resolution one step and see if it feels smoother. Put it back after.