Abstract: An improved tessellation graphics pipeline that obviates that use of early stage vertex shaders and hull shaders and allows greater efficiency and flexibility. Embodiments provide a graphics pipeline beginning with a tessellator that may obtain tessellation factors in any manner such as reading from a memory of factors provided by a developer or computing the factors using a compute kernel. In some embodiments, a single vertex shader may follow the tessellator and perform all the necessary vertex shading for the pipeline. Furthermore, in some embodiments, a compute kernel is used to generate the tessellation factors. The compute kernel provides flexibility that allows its employment for some graphic portions and not others. In addition, the streamlined pipeline facilitates the efficient use of scaling to determine tessellation factors for the same graphic portion at different camera distances or desired levels of replication of the mathematical model.