Kinds of shader

The shaders by which stage of the GPU they run in: once per pixel, once per corner of a shape, or as general-purpose compute.

5 shaders

Fragment

Fragment shaders, also called pixel shaders: a small program that runs once for every pixel and returns its colour. Most of what you see on screen starts here.

No shaders yet

VertexVertex shaders: programs that place the corners of shapes in space, so a flat mesh can bend, wave and move.Coming: Rippling Water (15)
ComputeCompute shaders: general-purpose programs on the GPU, used for particles, simulations and anything that isn't a picture yet.Coming: Particle Swarm (10), Curl-Noise Flow (14)
MeshMesh and object shaders: Metal's way of generating geometry on the GPU, in the place geometry shaders fill on other platforms.
TileTile shaders: programs that work on the small tiles of the screen Apple GPUs render in, close to the pixels.