Dynamic balancing of graphics workloads using a tiling strategy

A computer system comprising:

• a display device;
• a pointing device;
• and
• processor means for generating graphic images on said display device by (i) dividing the viewable area of the display device into a plurality of tiles, (ii) assigning each of the tiles to a respective one of a plurality of rendering processes, (iii) rendering a frame on the display device using the respective rendering processes, (iv) adjusting the sizes of at least two of the tiles in response to said rendering step, (v) smoothing at least two of the adjusted tile sizes by calculating a smooth tile size a_vg according to the formula;
• a_avg=[w(0)*a(j)]+[w(1)*a(j−1)]+[w(2)*a(j−2)]+ . . . +[w(M)*a(j−M)]
• where a(j) is the size of a tile for the j-th frame rendered, M is an integer less than j, and w(i) is a weighing factor subject to the further formula
• w(0)+w(1)+w(2)+ . . . +w(M)=1.

A method of generating graphic images on a display device of a computer system, comprising the steps of:

• dividing the viewable area of the display device into a plurality of tiles;
• assigning each of the tiles to a respective one of a plurality of rendering processes;
• rendering a frame on the display device using the respective rendering processes;
• and
• adjusting the sizes of at least two of the tiles in response to said rendering step,
• wherein said adjusting step includes the step of measuring the rendering times required for each rendering process to complete a respective portion of the frame, and adjusts the tile sizes based on the measured rendering times according to the formulae:
• a(1)=A/[1+C(2)+C(3)+C(4)+ . . . +C(N)],
• and
• a(i)=C(i)*a(1) for i=2, 3, 4, . . . , N
• where
• a(i) is the size of the i-th tile for the current frame,
• N is the number of tiles,
• A is the total viewable area of the display device,
• C(i)=c(1)/c(i) for i=2, 3, 4, . . . , N,
• c(i)=t_last(i)/a_last(i),
• a_last(i) is the tile area for the i-th tile from the last rendered frame, and
• t_last(i) is the rendering time for the i-th tile from the last rendered frame.

A computer system comprising:

• a display device;
• a pointing device;
• and
• processor means for generating graphic images on said display device by (i) dividing the viewable area of the display device into a plurality of tiles, (ii) assigning each of the tiles to a respective one of a plurality of rendering processes, (iii) rendering a frame on the display device using the respective rendering processes, (iv) adjusting the sizes of at least two of the tiles in response to said rendering step, and (v) measuring the rendering times required for each rendering process to complete a respective portion of the frame, wherein said processor means adjusts the tile sizes based on the measured rendering times according to the formulae:
• a(1)=A/[1+C(2)+C(3)+C(4)+. . . +C(N)],
• and
• a(i)=C(i)*a(1) for i=2, 3, 4, . . . , N
• where
• a(i) is the size of the i-th tile for the current frame,
• N is the number of tiles,
• A is the total viewable area of the display device,
• C(i)=c(1)/c(i) for i=2, 3, 4, . . . , N,
• c(i)=t_last(i)/a_last(i),
• a_last(i) is the tile area for the i-th tile from the last rendered frame, and
• t_last(i) is the rendering time for the i-th tile from the last rendered frame.