Removing shader generation stutter using modern APIs

[MayImilae]

Nope! Completely not possible. Even if you had 100% lowest level access to modern PC GPUs, and tried to run GameCube or Wii GPU code on them? It wouldn't work! When a game is coded for a specific GPU, that requires excluding all others that are not coded! That's the problem of low level access, and it's why APIs exist: before APIs like DirectX, if you wanted to make a PC game, you had to code for every single individual GPU you would support! With dozens of GPUs out at any given time, game devs just coded for the main popular ones at the time, and left the rest out of luck. APIs allowed PC games to not have to code for specific hardware, freeing them up to just make the game.

The GC and Wii run directly on the metal because they are consoles - every single console is exactly the same! There was no reason for APIs at the time (APIs are used by modern consoles to make things easier, but console game devs almost always bypass them), and the consoles gave games 100% control over the hardware so APIs weren't really even possible on them.


Anyway, there is a possible solution for the shader compilation stuttering problem - the "ubershader". Basically, the idea is a single shader that is always running and commands are streamed to it. Essentially it's moving the translation phase off of the CPU and onto the GPU. The question with that scenario of course, is how is it going to affect performance? We'll see.

Spoiler: (Show Spoiler)

Disclaimer: I'm very much not a coder!