US 2004/0201592 A1Published application

Head/data scheduling in 3D graphics

AssigneeS3 Graphics Co., Ltd.

InventorHsilin Huang

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Abstract

A system for processing graphics data for a stream of graphics primitives, such as triangles. The system has a plurality of memories each for storing an index of the primitive. A controller selects a memory to store the index and assigns a thread id to the index, the thread id indicating in which memory the index is stored. The thread id is stored in both a HEAD ID FIFO and a DATA ID FIFO, to maintain the order of the primitives during processing. A first multiplexer accesses a selected memory based on a thread id provided by the HEAD ID FIFO and a second multiplexer accesses a selected memory based on a thread id provided by the DATA ID FIFO. For each of the vertices of the graphics primitive, the first multiplexer provides a pointer for accessing coordinate information and the second multiplexer provides a pointer for accessing attribute information.

Claims13

Dependent claims

A system for processing graphics data for a stream of graphics primitives, the system comprising:

a plurality of memories, each having a unique thread id as an identifier of the memory, for storing an index of each graphics primitive in the stream;
a plurality of decoders, each decoder coupled to one of the memories and each configured to generate a pointer pointing to HEAD parameters of the primitive and one or more pointers pointing to DATA parameters of the primitive based on the graphics primitive index stored in the memory to which the decoder is coupled;
a HEAD ID FIFO for storing thread ids each indicating which memory a corresponding index item is stored;
a DATA ID FIFO for storing thread ids each indicating which memory a corresponding index item is stored;
a controller that receives the indexes ordered according to the stream of graphics primitives, the controller being operative to select one of the plurality of memories for storing each received index and store the received index in the selected memory, assign a thread id to the received index, and store the assigned thread id in both the HEAD ID FIFO and the DATA ID FIFO;
a HEAD multiplexer coupled to the plurality of memories and having a selection input that receives a stored thread id from the HEAD ID FIFO to select one of the plurality of decoders to output a pointer pointing to HEAD parameters of the primitive;
and
a DATA multiplexer coupled to the plurality of memories and having a selection input that receives a thread id from the DATA ID FIFO to select one of the plurality of decoders to output a pointer pointing to DATA parameters of the primitive.

5 more elements

A method of processing graphics data for a stream of graphics primitives, the method comprising:

receiving an index for a graphics primitive in the graphics stream, the graphics primitive having one or more vertices, each vertex having coordinate information and attribute information;
selecting an available one of a plurality of memories to store the received index of the graphics primitive;
forming a memory identifier to indicate the memory selected for storing the received index;
storing the received index in the selected memory and the memory identifier for the index in a HEAD ID FIFO and a DATA ID FIFO;
selecting one of the plurality of memories to output a HEAD pointer for the graphics primitive when indicated by a memory identifier in the HEAD ID FIFO, the HEAD pointer being formed based on the stored index and pointing to coordinate information for the vertices of the graphics primitive;
and
accessing coordinate information using the selected HEAD pointer.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.