
Compute tasks get either thread-level or instruction-level preemption. In graphics tasks, the driver restricts this to pixel-level preemption because pixel tasks typically finish quickly and the overhead costs of doing pixel-level preemption are much lower than performing instruction-level preemption. Nvidia therefore has safely enabled asynchronous compute in Pascal's driver. This allows the scheduler to dynamically adjust the amount of the GPU assigned to multiple tasks, ensuring that the GPU remains saturated with work except when there is no more work that can safely be distributed. Dynamic load balancing scheduling system.New memory controller with GDDR5X & GDDR5 support (GP102, GP104, GP106).NVENC HEVC Main10 10 bit hardware encoding (except GP108 which doesn't support NVENC ).HDCP 2.2 support for 4K DRM protected content playback & streaming (Maxwell GM200 & GM204 lack HDCP 2.2 support, GM206 supports HDCP 2.2).PureVideo Feature Set H hardware video decoding HEVC Main10 (10 bit), Main12 (12 bit) & VP9 hardware decoding (GM200 & GM204 did not support HEVC Main10/Main12 & VP9 hardware decoding).Fourth generation Delta Color Compression.Initially, chips were only produced in TSMC's 16 nm process, but later chips were made with Samsung's newer 14 nm process (GP107, GP108). The architecture incorporates either 16 nm FinFET ( TSMC) or 14 nm FinFET ( Samsung) technologies. The first graphics cards from the series, the GeForce GTX 10, were announced on May 6, 2016, and were released several weeks later on May 27 and June 10, respectively. The Pascal microarchitecture, named after Blaise Pascal, was announced in March 2014 as a successor to the Maxwell microarchitecture.
