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2026 Shader Ecosystem Survey

Tell us about your use of shading languages, shaders, and shader development tools. This survey closes on July 10, 2026.

We’d like to understand what is working well and what is not working well in the shader/shading language ecosystem. The results of this survey will be shared at the SIGGRAPH Real-Time Shading BOF during SIGGRAPH 2026. The information will also be used to help the Khronos Group establish initiatives to help improve the experience of practitioners in this area.
Demographics and Background
1.What best describes your primary role?
2.Which domains do you work in? (Select all that apply)
3.Which shading languages do you actively use today? (Select all that apply)
Current Usage and Tools
4.Which platforms do you target with shaders? (Select all that apply)
5.Which graphics/compute APIs do you target with shaders? (Select all that apply)
6.How much effort do you spend adapting shaders between platforms, APIs, or tools?
Pain Points
7.What are your biggest pain points when working with shaders today? (pick top 3)
8.How painful is shader debugging and profiling across your target platforms today?
0 = totally fine
100 = a daily nightmare
Standards and Future Needs
9.Which areas are most in need of stronger standardization? (pick top 3)
10.How valuable would the following be to you? (Rate each, 1=not valuable at all, 5=extremely valuable)
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5
A stronger common shading language or superset (e.g., expanded Slang)
Improved SPIR-V ecosystem and tooling
Standardized shader libraries / material definitions
Better cross-API shader translation tools
Official Khronos shader validation / conformance suite
11.Would your project benefit from a standardized, higher-level shader IR (above SPIR-V) — one that preserves enough semantics for optimization, debugging, and retargeting?
12.What capabilities are missing from today's shader languages or IRs?
Khronos and Industry Direction
13.How valuable would you find the following Khronos activities? (Rate each, 1=not valuable at all, 5=extremely valuable)
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5
Advancing Slang
SPIR-V evolution
Material interchange standards
A cross-vendor shader debugging standard
Conformance testing infrastructure
Better documentation and reference implementations
Standardization of toolchain or tools
Education and best practices
14.Is there a shading language or shader-adjacent specification you wish Khronos owned or incubated?
15.Would you be interested in participating in future Khronos working groups, reviews, or feedback sessions on shading standards?
16.Any additional comments or suggestions for the future of real-time shading standards?
17.This survey is anonymous, but if you'd like to be informed of future real-time shading activities involving Khronos, please leave your name and email address.