Hewlett-packard Company

Hewlett-packard Development Company, L.P.

Alan D Ward

Kevin T Lefebvre

Don W Dyer

Rex A Barzee

James G Dugger

Roland M Hochmuth

Samuel C Sands

David Pinedo

Ian A Elliott

Bradley L Saunders

James M Stearns

David R Lechtenberg

A system for providing a graphics tool access to a computer graphics system to evaluate and control a graphics application executing on the computer graphics system. The system includes application program interface (API) event generators for performing predetermined operations relating to a graphics library function call and for generating a hook event containing results of the predetermined operations; dispatch table manger for selecting an active dispatch table from a normal operations dispatch table having function pointer to the graphics library functions and a hooks dispatch table having pointer to the API event generators; and hook event manager for enabling and configuring selected ones of the API event generators in response to a graphics tool event request. The system further includes internal event generators, integrated along various locations of a graphics pipeline managed by the graphics library, for performing predetermined diagnostic operations in the graphics system. In this embodiment the hook event manager also enables and configures selected ones of the internal event generators.

Accessing a graphics system for graphics application evaluation and control

The present invention is generally directed to a system and method for managing context information in a graphics system having multiple displays configured as a single logical screen (SLS). In accordance with one embodiment a system is provided comprising a single device driver coupled to directly communicate with display hardware of at least two displays, a graphics API (application program interface) for communicating graphics information to the single device driver, a memory configured to store context information, the memory in communication with the single device driver, and a mechanism configured to direct context data from the memory to the display hardware of one of the displays.

System and method for managing context data in a single logical screen graphics environment

A method of buffering graphics vertex commands adaptively. A minimally-formatted vertex values buffer is created. As vertex commands are received from application software, attribute values are stored in an attribute values buffer until a vertex coordinate command is received. Upon receipt of a vertex coordinate command, attribute values are copied from the attribute values buffer into the vertex values buffer. Whenever application software issues a vertex attribute command corresponding to an attribute type that is not currently reflected in the vertex values buffer format, the vertex values buffer is automatically reformatted to include the new attribute type. Thus, the vertex values buffer automatically adapts itself to the behavior of the application. Multiple primitives are buffered between flushes. First-call and subsequent-call versions of code are provided for vertex commands. At initialization, a dispatch table is populated with pointers to the first-call versions. Thereafter, the dispatch table entries are manipulated by the commands themselves. Multiple subsequent-calls versions are provided for a single vertex coordinate command, each of the different subsequent-calls versions optimized for a different vertex values buffer format. The first-call version of the command determines which of the subsequent-calls versions is optimal for the current vertex values buffer format, and places a pointer to the optimized version in the dispatch table. Thereafter, the copying of values from the attribute values buffer into the vertex values buffer is done by the subsequent-calls version in a manner that corresponds exactly to the current vertex values buffer format, and without making any decisions.

Adaptive buffering of computer graphics vertex commands

A system for providing a graphics tool access to a computer graphics system to evaluate and control a graphics application executing on the computer graphics system. The system includes application program interface (API) event generators for performing predetermined operations relating to a graphics library function call and for generating a hook event containing results of the predetermined operations; dispatch table manger for selecting an active dispatch table from a normal operations dispatch table having function pointer to the graphics library finctions and a hooks dispatch table having pointer to the API event generators; and hook event manager for enabling and configuring selected ones of the API event generators in response to a graphics tool event request. The system further includes internal event generators, integrated along various locations of a graphics pipeline managed by the graphics library, for performing predetermined diagnostic operations in the graphics system. In this embodiment the hook event manager also enables and configures selected ones of the internal event generators.

System and method for asynchronously accessing a graphics system for graphics application evaluation and control

An interactive, information logging and processing tool that provides information regarding a process's data structure utilization to reduce the working set of a process's dynamically allocated memory. The actual working set (AWS) determinant determines which portions of the dynamically-allocated pages, referred to as the process's virtual memory (VM) working set (VWS) are actually used. It then determines the actual working set of a dynamically allocated memory for a given benchmark. The basic approach of the AWS determinator is to observe which data structures cause page faults when the targeted process is severely thrashing. AWS determinator includes a data logger and a data analyzer. The data logger ensures that a consistent benchmark is achieved in order to obtain the most accurate results, increases the number and granularity of heap page faults for the target process to enable the page fault mechanism of the processor to count the number of times the associated data structure is accessed, and log all heap page faults and transactions. The data analyzer is an interactive, information processing tool that efficiently process the large amounts of data logged by the data logger during a benchmark run. The data analyzer also allows users to interactively explore the processed data, to gain insights into a process's heap AWS. The data analyzer correlates each block of heap memory to a particular C data structure. Then, after the benchmark is completed and the above information is logged and correlated, an information processing step is performed wherein an approximate determination of the targeted process's heap AWS is performed.

Growing community of inventors

Ft. Collins, CO, United States of America

Alan D Ward