: The past decade has seen major improvements, in both speed and quality, in the area of interactive rendering. The focus of this article is on the evolution of the consumer-level personal graphics processor, since this is now the standard platform for most researchers developing new algorithms in the field. Instead of a survey approach covering all topics, this article covers the basics and then provides a tour of some parts the field. The goals are a firm understanding of what newer graphics processors provide and a sense of how different algorithms are developed in response to these capabilities.