Abstract: Circuits, methods, and apparatus that inhibit the collection or updating of page characteristics where such information is not useful. One example inhibits the updating of page usage information for pages that are to be kept resident in memory and not swapped to disk. The pages for which page usage or other characteristic updates are to be suppressed can be identified in a number of ways, including using a set range of addresses, bits in page directory entries, bits in page table entries, one or more address registers, or one or more segments.

Abstract: Circuits, methods, and apparatus that pre-load data that may be needed by a graphics processor to render upcoming scenes. One example determines one or more possible upcoming scenes or views. To save computing resources, the possible upcoming scenes are not fully rendered, but the addresses, and corresponding pages, of data that would be needed to render the scenes are determined. Page usage information is also gathered. Pages that would be needed to render the upcoming scenes, but which are not resident in memory, are read in from a disk drive and stored in memory before they are needed. Pages that are infrequently used are removed from physical memory. In this way, when the scene changes, a large number of page faults do not occur in one frame, rather, they are distributed among several frames.

Abstract: A method facilitating media processing is presented comprising generating a prediction of a region of encoded media content, receiving an indication of a quantity of remaining residual samples, on a per-region basis, and adding a first of such samples to the prediction to generate a modified prediction, and subtracting a second of such samples from the modified prediction, if so indicated.

Abstract: The management of computational resources of coprocessors to facilitate efficient execution of multiple applications in a multitasking environment is accomplished by enabling multiple threads of execution to compose command buffers in parallel, submitting those command buffers for scheduling and dispatch by the operating system, and fielding interrupts that notify of completion of command buffers, the system enables multiple applications to efficiently share the computational resources available in the system.

Abstract: Managed code, including applications, runtime, and driver, have a priori knowledge of the client's exact hardware configuration, just as the JIT compiler has a priori knowledge of the microprocessor type on the target computer system. At compile time, the compiler knows the effective version various system drivers, so that the compiler can emit an executable tuned for a particular driver version and target system.

Abstract: Circuits, methods, and apparatus for efficiently storing page characteristics. Page characteristics for memory pages are stored post address translation using addresses for physical locations in memory, for example, in a bit vector. The characteristics may include access or dirty bits, as well as other types of information. These bit vectors can also be stored and accumulated to generate histogram data. Two bit vectors may be included, while a first bit vector is written to, another is used. After data has been written to the first, the bit vectors are flipped, and data is written to the second while the first is used.

Abstract: An imaging or other sensory reproduction system efficiently converts image or other sensory data between a perceptual color space (e.g., the sRGB color space) and a physical color space (unity gamma) or other perceptual/physical sensory models that are related by an expression involving a computationally expensive exponential function. The imaging system calculates exponential functions that can be composed from computationally inexpensive operations, such as square root, square, reciprocal, as well as multiplications and/or additions and subtractions. These computationally less expensive functions are then combined, such as in a weighted and/or offset mean, summation or difference to approximate the computationally expensive exponential function. The imaging system evaluates the expression using the approximation to efficiently yield the converted image data.

Abstract: Disclosed are methods and systems for interfaces between video applications and display screens that allow applications to intelligently use display resources of their host device without tying themselves too closely to operational particulars of that host. A graphics arbiter provides display environment information to the video applications and accesses the applications' output to efficiently present that output to the display screen, possibly transforming the output or allowing another application to transform it in the process. The graphics arbiter tells applications the estimated time when the next frame will be displayed on the screen. Applications tailor their output to the estimated display time, thus improving output quality while decreasing resource waste by avoiding the production of “extra” frames. The graphics arbiter tells an application when its output is fully or partially occluded so that the application need not expend resources to draw portions of frames that are not visible.

Abstract: An imaging or other sensory reproduction system efficiently converts image or other sensory data between a perceptual color space (e.g., the sRGB color space) and a physical color space (unity gamma) or other perceptual/physical sensory models that are related by an expression involving a computationally expensive exponential function. The imaging system calculates exponential functions that can be composed from computationally inexpensive operations, such as square root, square, reciprocal, as well as multiplications and/or additions and subtractions. These computationally less expensive functions are then combined, such as in a weighted and/or offset mean, summation or difference to approximate the computationally expensive exponential function. The imaging system evaluates the expression using the approximation to efficiently yield the converted image data.

Abstract: Methods and systems are provided for authenticating component(s) in connection with the use of a trusted graphics system. Techniques are provided for authenticating a graphics card in connection with a system that cryptographically secures content routed through a graphics pipeline, such that an application or device can indicate to the trusted graphics platform that the application or device is a trusted user of the trusted graphics platform, and such that the graphics platform can communicate to the trusted application or device that the graphics platform may be trusted by the application or device.

Abstract: A method for providing a 16-bit floating point data representation where the 16-bit floating point data representation may be operated upon by a microprocessors native floating point instruction set. The method contemplates the use a variety of techniques for converting the 16-bit floating point number into a representative native floating point value. Thereafter, the native microprocessor floating point instruction set may perform operations upon the converted data. Upon completion, the native floating point data representation may be converted back into the 16-bit floating point value.

Abstract: Disclosed are methods and systems that allow video applications to merge their outputs for display and to transform the outputs of other applications before display. A graphics arbiter tells applications the estimated time when the next frame will be displayed on a display screen. Applications tailor their output to the estimated display time. When output from a first application is incorporated into a scene produced by a second application, the graphics arbiter “offsets” the estimated display time it gives to the first application in order to compensate for the latency caused by the second application's processing of the first application's output. A set of overlay buffers parallels the traditional buffers used to prepare frames for the display screen. In composing a frame, the screen merges video information from a traditional buffer with that from an overlay buffer, conserving display resources at the final point in the display composition process.

Abstract: Disclosed are methods and systems that allow video applications to merge their outputs for display and to transform the outputs of other applications before display. A graphics arbiter tells applications the estimated time when the next frame will be displayed on a display screen. Applications tailor their output to the estimated display time. When output from a first application is incorporated into a scene produced by a second application, the graphics arbiter “offsets” the estimated display time it gives to the first application in order to compensate for the latency caused by the second application's processing of the first application's output. A set of overlay buffers parallels the traditional buffers used to prepare frames for the display screen. In composing a frame, the screen merges video information from a traditional buffer with that from an overlay buffer, conserving display resources at the final point in the display composition process.

Abstract: Methods and systems protect digital content such as premium content like movies, programs, and other types of digital audio/visual content. In some embodiments, an architecture and related methods protect content by maintaining the content in encrypted form, whether the content resides in video card memory (referred to herein as “VRAM”), or some other local or remote memory subsystem. The methods and systems enable video card co-processors, such as the graphics processing unit (GPU) to manipulate the encrypted content or data. In various embodiments, the content is maintained in an encrypted format and is unencrypted only when the GPU operates upon the data. After the GPU operates upon the data, the resultant data is re-encrypted and written to memory.

Abstract: Tile buffers in a graphics processing system are managed using “copy-on-write” semantics, in which tile data stored in a memory location is not transferred to another location until the tile data for one of the buffers is modified, thereby providing copy on flip behavior to support incremental updating of the data. Tile data for a new frame is written to one of the two memory spaces by reference to a first logical buffer that associates each tile with one of the memory spaces. Concurrently, tile data for a current frame is read from the two memory spaces by reference to a second logical buffer that also associates each tile with one of the memory spaces. In response to a frame flip signal, the tile associations of the second logical buffer are modified to match those of the first logical buffer. Subsequent tile data updates are written to the memory spaces by reference to the second logical buffer after modifying one of the first and second tile associations such that they no longer match.

Abstract: Disclosed are methods and systems that allow video applications to merge their outputs for display and to transform the outputs of other applications before display. A graphics arbiter tells applications the estimated time when the next frame will be displayed on a display screen. Applications tailor their output to the estimated display time. When output from a first application is incorporated into a scene produced by a second application, the graphics arbiter “offsets” the estimated display time it gives to the first application in order to compensate for the latency caused by the second application's processing of the first application's output. A set of overlay buffers parallels the traditional buffers used to prepare frames for the display screen. In composing a frame, the screen merges video information from a traditional buffer with that from an overlay buffer, conserving display resources at the final point in the display composition process.

Abstract: Systems and methods are provided for managing the computational resources of coprocessor(s), such as graphics processor(s), in a computing system. The systems and methods illustrate management of computational resources of coprocessors to facilitate efficient execution of multiple applications in a multitasking environment. By enabling multiple threads of execution to compose command buffers in parallel, submitting those command buffers for scheduling and dispatch by the operating system, and fielding interrupts that notify of completion of command buffers, the system enables multiple applications to efficiently share the computational resources available in the system.

Abstract: Methods and systems are provided for cryptographically protecting secure content in connection with a graphics subsystem of a computing device. Techniques are implemented to encrypt the contents of video memory so that unauthorized software cannot gain meaningful access to it, thereby maintaining confidentiality. Moreover, a mechanism for tamper detection is provided so that there is awareness when data has been altered in some fashion, thereby maintaining integrity. In various embodiments, the contents of overlay surfaces and/or command buffers are encrypted, and/or the GPU is able to operate on encrypted content while preventing its availability to untrusted parties, devices or software.

Abstract: A system and methods for implementing histogram computation, for example, into the rasterization pipeline of a 3-D graphics system, are provided. With the histogram computation mechanism, statistical histogram data may be generated for input data of any kind or retrieved from any source that may be specified in a 2-D array or specified in an immediate fashion to specialized data processing hardware. Depending on the nature of the input data, the data may be filtered before passing the data to data processing hardware for further processing. The data processing hardware may then apply an additional function to the input data set before calculation of the histogram data. Then, at some point, the data processing hardware may apply a function to the data to map the derived data to a real-valued function that can then be quantized to a histogram element in the range specified from zero to the number of histogram elements minus one.

Abstract: Disclosed are methods and systems for interfaces between video applications and display screens that allow applications to intelligently use display resources of their host device without tying themselves too closely to operational particulars of that host. A graphics arbiter provides display environment information to the video applications and accesses the applications' output to efficiently present that output to the display screen, possibly transforming the output or allowing another application to transform it in the process. The graphics arbiter tells applications the estimated time when the next frame will be displayed on the screen. Applications tailor their output to the estimated display time, thus improving output quality while decreasing resource waste by avoiding the production of “extra” frames. The graphics arbiter tells an application when its output is fully or partially occluded so that the application need not expend resources to draw portions of frames that are not visible.