Almeida: a brief introduction on how GPU drivers work

The starting point is to understand that a kernel-mode GPU driver connects a much larger UMD (user-mode driver) to the actual GPU. The UMD will actually implement APIs like Vulkan, OpenGL, OpenCL, and others. These APIs, in turn, will be used by actual programs to describe their workload to the GPU. This includes allocating and using not only the geometry and textures, but also the shaders being used to process said data into the final result. This means that a key aspect of GPU drivers is actually allocating GPU memory to house data related to the current scene being drawn so that it can actually be operated on by the hardware.