Abstract: An apparatus and method are described for decoupling visibility bins and render tile dimensions for tiled rendering. In one embodiment of the invention, a single visibility pass over the scene objects is performed and all the visibility bins are generated in parallel. This allows for high performance when the number of render tiles exceeds the number of visibility bins. The regions upon which visibility testing/recording is done is decoupled from the render tile regions in one embodiment of the invention. This allows a given visibility bin to map to multiple render tiles, thus allowing a fixed number of visibility bins to support any number of render tiles.

Abstract: Systems and methods may provide for conducting a region determination of whether one or more domain points associated with a tessellated patch are shared between multiple region sets of the tessellated patch. If the one or more domain points are not shared between multiple region sets of the tessellated patch, an intra-region cache may be automatically interrogated for non-shared shading data. If the one or more domain points are shared between multiple region sets of the tessellated patch, an inter-region cache may be automatically interrogated for shared shading data. In one example, one or more references to the shared shading data is generated and associated with the one or more domain points when cache hits occur in the inter-region cache.

Abstract: In position-only shading, two geometry pipes exist, a trimmed down version called the Cull Pipe and a full version called the Replay Pipe. Thus, the Cull Pipe executes the position shaders in parallel with the main application, but typically generates the critical results much faster as it fetches and shades only the position attribute of the vertices and avoids the rasterization as well as the rendering of pixels for the frame buffer. Furthermore, the Cull Pipe uses these critical results to compute visibility information for all the triangles whether they are culled or not. On the other hand, the Replay Pipe consumes the visibility information to skip the culled triangles and shades only the visible triangles that are finally passed to the rasterization phase. Together the two pipes can hide the long cull runs of discarded triangles and can complete the work faster in some embodiments.

Abstract: Methods and hardware may process single plane clipping operations using a pipeline specialized for single plane clipping. A second pipeline may be provided to handle clipping in multi-clipping plane cases. By optimizing the hardware and methods around single plane clipping, polygon throughput may be enhanced.

Abstract: An apparatus may include a memory to store a set of triangle vertices in a triangle, a processor circuit coupled to the memory and a cache to cache a set of triangle vertex indices corresponding to triangle vertices most recently transmitted through a graphics pipeline. The apparatus may also include an autostrip vertex processing component operative on the processor circuit to receive from the memory the set of triangle vertices, compare an index for each vertex of the set of triangle vertices to determine matches to the set of cached triangle vertex indices, and shift a single vertex index into the cache, the single vertex index corresponding to a vertex miss in which a given vertex of the set of triangle vertices does not match any vertex index of the set of cached triangle vertex indices when exactly two matches to the set of cached triangle vertex indices are found.

Abstract: Methods and apparatuses may prioritize the processing of high priority and low priority contexts submitted to a processing unit through separate high priority and low priority context submission ports. According to one embodiment, submission of a context to the low priority port causes contexts in progress to be preempted, whereas submission of a context to the high priority port causes contexts in progress to be paused.

Abstract: An apparatus may include a memory to store a set of triangle vertices in a triangle, a processor circuit coupled to the memory and a cache to cache a set of triangle vertex indices corresponding to triangle vertices most recently transmitted through a graphics pipeline. The apparatus may also include an autostrip vertex processing component operative on the processor circuit to receive from the memory the set of triangle vertices, compare an index for each vertex of the set of triangle vertices to determine matches to the set of cached triangle vertex indices, and shift a single vertex index into the cache, the single vertex index corresponding to a vertex miss in which a given vertex of the set of triangle vertices does not match any vertex index of the set of cached triangle vertex indices when exactly two matches to the set of cached triangle vertex indices are found.

Abstract: A machine readable storage media containing executable program instructions which when executed cause a digital processing system to set a plurality of operands and operators. A plurality of texture maps are sent to a processor for texture compositing. Operands are selected for a texture operation. A first logic is used wherein if the circulation of blend stages is equal to a number of blend stages, then a color saturation is performed, and a second logic that if the circulation number of blend stages does not equal the number of blend stages then at least one operand is selected for another texture compositing operation.

Abstract: Systems, apparatus and methods are described including distributing batches of geometric objects to a multi-core system, at each processor core, performing vertex processing and geometry setup processing on the corresponding batch of geometric objects, storing the vertex processing results shared memory accessible to all of the cores, and storing the geometry setup processing results in local storage. Each particular core may then perform rasterization using geometry setup results obtained from local storage within the particular core and from local storage of at least one of the other processor cores.

Abstract: Programmable predication logic in command streamer instruction execution is described. In one example, the invention includes a method that includes receiving batch buffer execution start command at a command streamer, the batch buffer containing executable instructions, determining whether predication has been enabled for the instructions using the start command, if predication has been enabled, then comparing a predication condition to values stored in a predication register, and if the condition is satisfied by the predication register values, then executing the batch buffer.

Abstract: According to some embodiments of the present invention, pixel throughput may be improved by performing depth tests and recording the results on the granularity of an input geometry object. An input geometry object is any object within the depiction represented by a primitive, such as a triangle within an input triangle list or a patch within an input patch list.

Abstract: An apparatus may include a memory to store a set of triangle vertices in a triangle, a processor circuit coupled to the memory and a cache to cache a set of triangle vertex indices corresponding to triangle vertices most recently transmitted through a graphics pipeline. The apparatus may also include an autostrip vertex processing component operative on the processor circuit to receive from the memory the set of triangle vertices, compare an index for each vertex of the set of triangle vertices to determine matches to the set of cached triangle vertex indices, and shift a single vertex index into the cache, the single vertex index corresponding to a vertex miss in which a given vertex of the set of triangle vertices does not match any vertex index of the set of cached triangle vertex indices when exactly two matches to the set of cached triangle vertex indices are found.

Abstract: Similar, contiguous primitives are stored as a single primitive in zone rendering bins. A primitive packet used in the bin is allowed to vary in length and the currently open type of primitive is recorded on a per-bin basis. A special code is used to specify a variable number of subsequent indices. With this mechanism, the hardware is able to start outputting and replicating primitive commands into bin lists on the fly without requiring the buffering of the entire primitive. Given the variable nature of the primitive instruction, multiple similar/sequential primitives can be concatenated using a single primitive command header.

Abstract: An image is rendered by dividing the image into chunks, rendering the chunks in one of at least two devices, and determining which of the devices renders each one of at least some of the chunks based on at least one device's progress in the rendering of other chunks.

Abstract: Similar, contiguous primitives are stored as a single primitive in zone rendering bins. A primitive packet used in the bin is allowed to vary in length and the currently open type of primitive is recorded on a per-bin basis. A special code is used to specify a variable number of subsequent indices. With this mechanism, the hardware is able to start outputting and replicating primitive commands into bin lists on the fly without requiring the buffering of the entire primitive. Given the variable nature of the primitive instruction, multiple similar/sequential primitives can be concatenated using a single primitive command header.

Abstract: A machine readable storage media containing executable program instructions which when executed cause a digital processing system to seta plurality of operands and operators. A plurality of texture maps are sent to a processor for texture compositing. Operands are selected for a texture operation. A first logic is used wherein if the circulation of blend stages is equal to a number of blend stages, then a color saturation is performed, and a second logic that if the circulation number of blend stages does not equal the number of blend stages then at least one operand is selected for another texture compositing operation.

Abstract: A method, apparatus, and system to concurrently render independent images for display on one or more display devices. In an embodiment, a graphics-rendering engine concurrently renders independent images for display on multiple display devices. A graphics context manager stores in a first memory area and restores from the first memory area information describing a first rendering context associated with a first independent image. The graphics context manager stores in a second memory area and restores from the second memory area information describing a second rendering context associated with a second independent image.

Abstract: A method, apparatus, and system to concurrently render independent images for display on one or more display devices. In an embodiment, a graphics-rendering engine concurrently renders independent images for display on multiple display devices. A time allocator arbitrates the concurrent use of the graphics-rendering engine between each independent image being rendered.

Abstract: The present invention optimizes graphics performance during zone rendering by providing an automatic management of bin memory between the binning and rendering phases. Embodiments of the present invention provide a mechanism by which the binner and renderer automatically share a pool of physical memory pages in order to build bin buffers and recycle them after they have been used in rendering. This is performed in such a fashion that multiple binned scenes can be queued up concurrently, with no requirement for software intervention except under exceptional conditions. The need for software management of zone rendering bin buffer memory is thus eliminated. Multiple scenes for binning and rendering can also be queued without software intervention.

Abstract: A depth write disable apparatus and method for controlling evictions, such as depth values, from a depth cache to a corresponding depth buffer in a zone rendering system. When the depth write disable circuitry is enabled, evictions from the depth cache (as which typically occur during the rendering of the next zone) to the depth buffer are prevented. In particular, once the depth buffer is initialized (i.e. cleared) to a constant value at the beginning of a scene, the depth buffer does not need to be read. The depth cache handles intermediate depth reads and writes within each zone. Since the memory resident depth buffer is not required after a scene is rendered, it never needs to be written. The final depth values for a zone can thus be discarded (i.e., rather than written to the depth buffer) after each zone is rendering.