Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

Derek Lentz

David Conrad Tannenbaum

Michael C Shebanow

Mitchell K Alsup

Ignacio Llamas

Sang Oak Woo

Karthik Ramani

Srinivasan Iyer

Christopher James Goodman

Nilanjan Goswami

Veynu Narasiman

Chris Goodman

Chiachi Chao

Yevgeniy Urdenko

Adithya Hrudhayan Krishnamurthy

A method for performing a blending operation in a graphics processing unit may include multiplying a first value and a first blend factor for a component of a render target with a first multiply operation of a multiplier, multiplying a second value and a second blend factor for the component of the render target with a second multiply operation of the multiplier, and adding a first result of the first multiply operation and a second result of the second multiply operation. The method may further include bypassing the multiplier for a first blend factor of substantially zero. The method may further include, for a blend factor of substantially one: bypassing the multiplier, and providing the first value of the component of the render target as a result of the first multiply operation.

Methods and apparatus for efficient blending in a graphics pipeline

According to one general aspect, an apparatus may include a graphical processing engine comprising a pipeline having a plurality of substantially sequential circuit stages, the pipeline comprising a front-end output logic circuit configured to substantially separate position information into a position information pipeline portion, and non-position information in a non-position information pipeline portion. Wherein the pipeline is configured to perform a multi-stage culling of data.

Optimized pixel shader attribute management

A method for avoiding lockup in a graphics pipeline may include accumulating position information in an accumulating stage of the pipeline, passing position information from a first preceding stage of the pipeline to the accumulating stage, determining a condition in the first preceding stage, and draining accumulated position information from the accumulating stage in response to the condition in the first preceding stage. The method may further include passing position information from the first preceding stage to a second preceding stage of the pipeline, passing position information from the second preceding stage to the accumulating stage, determining a condition in the second preceding stage, and draining accumulated position information from the accumulating stage in response to the condition in the first preceding stage and the condition in the second preceding stage.

Methods and apparatus for avoiding lockup in a graphics pipeline

A graphics pipeline may reduce the number of times when reciprocal, multiply or add computations are used for interpolation computations when though the GPU hardware has been programmed or set to perform a linear-perspective interpolation by determining whether a homogeneous coordinate of each vertex of the primitive is within a predetermined threshold of 1 when a linear-perspective interpolation technique has been specified in a shader program, and determining one or more attributes of the element using a linear interpolation technique based on the homogeneous coordinate of each vertex of the primitive being within a predetermined threshold of 1.

Optimized computation of perspective interpolants

A computer-implemented redundant-coverage discard method and apparatus for reducing pixel shader work in a tile-based graphics rendering pipeline is disclosed. A coverage block information (CBI) FIFO buffer is disposed within an early coverage discard (ECD) logic section. The FIFO buffer receives and buffers coverage blocks in FIFO order. At least one coverage block that matches the block position within the TCPM is updated. The TCPM stores per-pixel primitive coverage information. The FIFO buffer buffers a moving window of the coverage blocks. Incoming primitive information associated with the coverage blocks is compared with the per-pixel primitive coverage information stored in the tile coverage-primitive map (TCPM) table at the corresponding positions for the live coverages only. Any preceding overlapping coverage within the moving window of the coverage blocks is rejected. An alternate embodiment uses a doubly linked-list rather than a FIFO buffer.

Efficient redundant coverage discard mechanism to reduce pixel shader work in a tile-based graphics rendering pipeline

A system and method for binding instructions to a graphical processing unit (GPU) includes a GPU configured to receive bindlessly compiled instructions and interpret the bindlessly compiled instruction at runtime to identify a needed conversion The GPU generates a conversion information based on the bindlessly compiled instruction and needed conversion and converts the bindlessly compiled instruction according to the conversion information to generate a bound format instruction. The GPU may then execute the bound format instruction.

Efficient interface and transport mechanism for binding bindless shader programs to run-time specified graphics pipeline configurations and objects

Provided is a method of performing coverage merging in a shading stage of a graphics system. The method includes: performing a draw call on primitives and rasterizing the primitives into blocks of pixels; selecting the draw call for merge testing of individual blocks; performing a depth test on the individual blocks; in response to the depth test being satisfied, merging partially covered fragments of the same draw call of one of the block of pixels to form a merged block of pixels; and performing shading of the merged block of pixels on a draw call basis.

Elimination of minimal use threads via quad merging

A method for using a graphics processor by an electronic device for subdividing an input image into multiple sub-regions. For each particular sub-region, a data structure is created that identifies one or more primitives that are visible in each quad of the particular sub-region. Existing coverage of one or more quads is erased based on graphics state (GState) information resulting in surviving coverage for one or more quads.

Reduction of graphical processing through coverage testing

Fragment merging is performed on a draw call basis. One application is for quad merging. Primitives of the same draw call have many common attributes, such as a graphics state, which facilitates merging of quad fragments. Partially covered quad fragments of the same draw call are considered for possible merging and at least one merge test performed. The merge test may include error tests such as a level of detail error test, interpolated depth, and an interpolation error test.

Growing community of inventors

Reno, NV, United States of America

Derek Lentz