ARB assembly language

ARB assembly language is a low-level shading language, which can be characterized as an assembly language. It was created by the OpenGL Architecture Review Board (ARB) to standardize GPU instructions controlling the hardware graphics pipeline.

Texas Instruments created the first programmable graphics processor in 1985: the TMS34010, which allowed developers to load and execute code on the processor to control pixel output on a video display. This was followed by the TMS34020 and TMS34082 in 1989, providing programmable 3D graphics output.

NVIDIA released its first video card NV1 in 1995, which supported quadratic texture mapping. This was followed by the Riva 128 (NV3) in 1997, providing the first hardware acceleration for Direct3D.

Various video card vendors released their own accelerated boards, each with their own instruction set for GPU operations. The OpenGL Architecture Review Board (ARB) was formed in 1992, in part to establish standards for the GPU industry.

The ARB and NVIDIA established a number of OpenGL extensions to standardize GPU programming:

This culminated with ARB's 2002 release of

These two extensions provided an industry standard for an assembly language that controlled the GPU pipeline for 3D vertex and interpolated pixel properties, respectively.

Subsequent high-level shading languages sometimes compile to this ARB standard. While 3D developers are now more likely to use a C-like, high-level shading language for GPU programming, ARB assembly has the advantage of being supported on a wide range of hardware.

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