Early release of resources in ray tracing hardware

A ray tracing hardware coupled to a processor and comprising circuitry configured to perform operations comprising:

• receive a plurality of thread requests including a first and second thread requests, each thread request including information defining a ray and a primitive to test for intersection with the ray;
• allocate a resource for storing intersection test results;
• process the first and second thread requests to provide an intersection test result for each thread request;
• report intersection test results stored in the allocated resource to a cooperating processor for a first type of primitive intersection test result;
• and
• report ray intersection test results to the cooperating processor using data that was predetermined before the intersection test was performed for at least one second type of primitive intersection test result that is different from the first type of primitive intersection test result.

A ray tracing hardware method comprising:

• receiving a plurality of thread requests, each thread request including information defining a ray and a primitive to test for intersection with the ray;
• allocating a resource for each of the plurality of thread requests for storing intersection test results;
• processing the plurality of thread requests to provide an intersection test result for each thread request;
• deallocating the resources allocated for one or more of the plurality of thread requests for which a predetermined ray intersection test result is determined before the intersection test results are reported;
• and
• reporting intersection test results stored in the allocated resource to a cooperating processor.