According to some embodiments, a graphics processor may abort a workload without requiring changes to the kernel code compilation or intruding upon graphics processing unit execution. Instead, it is possible to only read the predicate state once before starting and once before restarting a workload that has been preempted because the user wishes to abort the work. This avoids the need to read from each execution unit, reducing the drain on memory bandwidth and increasing power and performance in some embodiments.