Vertex pipeline
The function of the vertex pipeline in any GPU is to take geometry data (usually supplied as vector points), work with it if needed with either fixed function processes (earlier DirectX), or a vertex shader program (later DirectX), and create all of the 3D data points in a scene to a 2D plane for display on a computer monitor. It is possible to eliminate unneeded data from going through the rendering pipeline to cut out extraneous work (called view volume clipping and backface culling).