The role of CPU/GPU in Graphic processing and display - Simplified

We have talked in the last article about how a display works in a very simplified way

In order to change what is displayed, we need to change the content of the memory.

The device that changes memory’s content is the ALU.

Let us assume that we want to shift everything in the display by one column to the right, we are going to let the ALU perform some arithmetic operations and it’s going to change the memory content accordingally.

• Changing all of these by one ALU takes time, because it needs to access every flip-flop to change its content one-by-one which takes a long time, unless we have multiple ALUs then every single ALU can be responsible for a chunk of memory.

So, instead of changing one flip-flop or regiuster stored singal at a time, we can change multiple flip-flops.

The main difference between CPU and GPU

Here comes the biggest difference, where GPU consists of large number of ALUs that are packed together to be able to perform operations faster, where CPU consists of only few numbers of ALUs

To be able to perform and display some 3D designs we have a lot of chunks in the memory that need to be changed plus there are a lot of mathematical operations that need to be performed to be able to do 3D/2D rotations that’s why we need lots of ALUs.

This is why GPU matters for games

Same goes for games, if we are performing a game with high quality graphics on a CPU which can not change their memory so fast and that causes lagging in the display, in contrast if we are performing the game on a GPU where operations are done more faster meaning that the display is smooth.

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