Abstract: Disclosed herein are system, method, and computer program product embodiments for reducing GPU load by programmatically controlling shading rates in computer graphics. GPU load may be reduced by applying different shading rates to different screen regions. By reading the depth buffer of previous frames and performing image processing, thresholds may be calculated that control the shading rates. The approach may be run on any platform that supports VRS hardware and primitive- or image-based VRS. The approach may be applied on a graphics driver installed on a client device, in a firmware layer between hardware and a driver, in a software layer between a driver and an application, or in hardware on the client device. The approach is flexible and adaptable and calculates and sets the variable rate shading based on the graphics generated by an application without requiring the application developer to manually set variable rate shading.

Abstract: Disclosed are embodiments of a graphics scene detection technique that provides an adaptive scale factor dependent on an image quality, such that certain images may be downscaled prior to being displayed to preserve system resources without significantly affecting image quality for a user. The inventors recognized and appreciated that certain images may be presented at a lower resolution to a user without being perceived as lower image quality. Some aspects provide a scene detection module that determines a quality score from a graphic command output for an image. Depending on the quality score, the scene detection module may output a quality-aware scale factor that can be applied to reduce pixel resolution of an image before displaying the image to a user. Resultingly, the computing device may be improved by saving system resources including memory bandwidth, processing power for other apps or instances, without negatively affecting visual perception of the scene.