Can the particle be rendered as it is?

[aksmfakt132]

Can the particle be rendered as it is?

Or should I convert it to shape and mesh and render it?

I first saw particles with tyflow. It's powerful and nice, but I don't know particles very well.

Is it always converted to mesh and rendered?

[d4rk3lf]

Yes, you can't render particle points (unless using Krakatoa), or at least, not to my knowledge.
You should add a shape operator, and render them as a spheres (or whatever object you want), or if they very small, you can render them (for the sake or preserving a polygon count) to boxes, or planes, triangles...etc
And don't forget mesh operator.