US 2003/0169267 A1Published application

Apparatus for reusing lighted vertex data in a computer graphics system

OwnerChung-Yen Luinventor

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Abstract

An apparatus for reusing lighted vertex data in a computer graphics system. The disclosed apparatus includes a storage area having entries that are employed to store lighted vertex indices. The apparatus has a number of comparators each of which compares respective content of the corresponding entry with a presently received vertex index to determine whether they are the same. It also includes an encoder, a counter and a multiplexer. In response to output of the comparators, the encoder reports a hit value and produces an address dedicated to the entry storing the lighted vertex index that is the same as the received vertex index. The counter increases an update pointer by one when the hit value is not indicative of a hit status. Based on the hit value, the multiplexer selectively outputs the address or the update pointer as a reference position.

Claims12

Dependent claims

An apparatus for reusing lighted vertex data in a computer graphics system, comprising:

a storage area having a plurality of entries each of which is used to store a lighted vertex index;
a plurality of comparators each of which compares respective content of the corresponding entry with a presently received vertex index to determine whether they are the same;
an encoder, responsive to output of the comparators, adapted to report a hit value and to produce an address, wherein the hit value is indicative of a hit status when one of the comparators determines that the content of the corresponding entry and the received vertex index are the same, and wherein the address is dedicated to the entry storing the lighted vertex index that is the same as the received vertex index;
a counter for increasing an update pointer by one when the hit value is not indicative of a hit status;
and
a multiplexer, responsive to the hit value, to selectively output the address as a reference position if the hit value is indicative of the hit status, and to selectively output the update pointer as the reference position if the hit value is not indicative of the hit status.

3 more elements

A graphics management module for use in a geometry accelerator of a computer graphics system, comprising:

a reference generator receiving a vertex index, for providing a hit value and a reference position;
a reference queue for storing the hit value and the reference position;
a data buffer for storing lighted vertex data processed by the geometry accelerator;
and
a data manager fetching the hit value and the reference position from the reference queue, for instructing the data buffer to retrieve and output the lighted vertex data according to the reference position when the hit value indicates that the lighted vertex data associated with the received vertex index has been previously stored in the data buffer, and for instructing the data buffer to store the lighted vertex data processed by the geometry accelerator according to the reference position when the hit value indicates that the lighted vertex data associated with the received vertex index cannot be found in the data buffer.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.