Over the last couple of years, the gaming industry has seen a significant surge in high-quality, immersive experiences. Games are just prettier and bigger now, meaning gamers need better hardware to run them.
However, the price of gaming hardware has never been cheap, and it’s getting increasingly expensive with each passing year, meaning many gamers are stuck trying to play high-demand games on low-end systems – which is where Variable Rate Shading comes into the picture.
Variable Rate Shading is a new-ish, intelligent rendering technique that promises seamless gaming on low-end hardware. Variable Rate Shading works by intelligently allocating GPU resources to different parts of the screen based on what is needed, meaning gamers could experience a significant boost in performance without lowering the overall settings and quality of the game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1zoGmhVB1U
Variable Rate Shading’s ability to adapt to the specific needs of each game means that if it picks up that a game features rapid camera movements, Variable Rate Shading will automatically prioritise rendering objects in the centre of the screen. Likewise, if it picks up the game being played features slower camera movements, Variable Rate Shading will intelligently allocate more resources to rendering the environment and background details.
Another perk to Variable Rate Shading is that it will consider the hardware it is running on and make the call on whether or not to prioritise performance or visual quality, ensuring that the game always runs smoothly. By using AI to allocate GPU resources while also adapting to the specific needs of each game and system, Variable Rate Shading should boost performance without sacrificing visual quality.
Variable rate shading is currently being used by Nvidia graphics cards as well as Intel’s Gen11 and higher graphics architecture.