US 7,548,244 B2Granted

Interactive debugging and monitoring of shader programs executing on a graphics processor

AssigneeSony Computer Entertainment Inc.

InventorAlan Bryant Heirich

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Abstract

A development application leverages the programmability of shader execution units in the graphics processing subsystem to make graphics processing subsystem state data accessible to applications executed outside the graphics processing subsystem. The development application modifies shaders to include state output instructions adapted to direct a shader execution unit to copy graphics processing subsystem state data to a location in the computer system that is accessible to applications executed outside of the graphics processing subsystem. Following the execution of the state output instructions, the shader execution unit can be halted or can continue executing the shader. The development application can modify the shader to include state restoration instructions adapted to direct the shader execution unit to set state data of the graphics processing subsystem to previous or new values. The development application can dynamically modify shaders with state output and restoration instructions to update state data of the graphics processing subsystem.

Claims35

Dependent claims

A method of accessing state information of a graphics processing subsystem within a first computer system, wherein the graphics processing subsystem includes a plurality of programmable execution units operable to execute instances of a shader program in parallel, and wherein the first computer system includes at least one central processing unit, the method comprising:

providing a first shader program to the graphics processing subsystem, wherein the first shader program includes at least one state output instruction;
executing multiple concurrent instances of the first shader program including the state output instruction by the plurality of programmable execution units of the graphics processing subsystem;
and
in response to the state output instruction in a determined instance of one of the multiple concurrent instances of the first shader program, transferring the state information of the graphics processing subsystem stored in a portion of the graphics processing subsystem that is inaccessible to the central processing unit of the first computer system to a portion of the first computer system that is accessible to the central processing unit,
wherein the determined instance is able to resume execution after the state information has been transferred without negatively impacting execution of the other multiple concurrent instances.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.