Abstract: The present technology augments the GPU compute model to provide system-provided data marshalling characteristics of graphics pipelining to increase efficiency and reduce overhead. A simple scheduling model based on scalar counters semaphores) abstract the availability of hardware resources. Resource releases can be done programmatically, and a system scheduler only needs to track the states of such counters/semaphores to make work launch decisions. Semantics of the counters/sema.phores are defined by an application, which can use the counters/semaphores to represent the availability of free space in a memory buffer, the amount of cache pressure induced by the data flow in the network, or the presence of work items to be processed.