US 7,002,586 B2 · Method and apparatus for vertex splitting in a graphics system

Abstract

An apparatus and method for splitting vertex streams relating to graphics data into substreams, and processing the substreams in parallel. A graphics subsystem of a computer system includes a vertex splitting module, which determines whether incoming vertex streams are of a unicast, unlocked type, and thus available for splitting, and further whether graphics primitives in the vertex stream are of a type that may be split. If appropriate, the vertex splitting module then locates vertices in the vertex stream, generates substreams from the vertex stream, and transmits the substreams in a load-balanced operation to multiple graphics processors for parallel processing and outputting to an output device. If the vertex stream is too large to store in FIFO queues of the graphics processors, it is not split into substreams.

Claims16

Dependent claims

A graphics system, comprising:

a vertex splitting module operable to:
receive a vertex stream relating to graphics data, wherein the vertex stream comprises a primitive identifier corresponding to the primitive type in the vertex stream, a replacement code corresponding to the replacement algorithm used for the primitive type in the vertex stream, and vertex data for each vertex of the primitives;
detect and store the primitive identifier and the replacement code;
and
conditionally generate at least two substreams from the vertex stream by splitting the vertex stream into sequential segments, if the primitive identifier indicates a primitive type of one or more isolated structures, and the replacement code indicates a replace-oldest replacement algorithm;
and
at least two graphics processors configured to operate in parallel and independently process substreams received from the vertex splitting module into pixels.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Method and apparatus for vertex splitting in a graphics system

Life of this patent

Method and apparatus for vertex splitting in a graphics system

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims16