Advanced Micro Devices Corporation

Ati Technologies Ulc

Ati Technologies Inc.

Jason Yang

Alexander Lyashevsky

Arcot J Preetham

Andrew S Pomianowski

Konstantine I Iourcha

Takahiro Harada

Jerry McKee

Raja Koduri

Angus McDonald Dorbie

A method for enhanced forward rendering is disclosed which includes a depth pre-pass, light culling and a final shading. The depth pre-pass minimizes the cost of final shading by avoiding high pixel overdraw. The light culling stage calculates a list of light indices overlapping a pixel. The light indices are calculated on a per-tile basis, where the screen has been split into units of tiles. The final shading evaluates materials using information stored for each light. The forward rendering method may be executed on a processor, such as a single graphics processing unit (GPU) for example.

Forward rendering pipeline with light culling

A system for decoding video data includes a processing unit. The processing unit includes a plurality of processing pipelines and a driver. The driver includes a decoder configured to generate a plurality of intermediate control maps containing control information including an indication of which macro blocks or portions of macro blocks may be processed in parallel in the plurality of processing pipelines.

System for parallel intra-prediction decoding of video data

Embodiments are described for a method for using anti-aliasing hardware to generate a higher resolution image at the processing of a lower resolution image with anti-aliasing. A graphics image comprising allocating a buffer used in a multisample anti-aliasing process, wherein the allocated buffer has a dimension comprising a reduction in at least one of the width or height of an original dimension of an original buffer provided by the anti-aliasing hardware; rendering sampled image data to the allocated buffer at a sampling rate proportional to the reduction; and expanding the allocated buffer back to the dimension of the original buffer.

Variable acuity rendering using multisample anti-aliasing

Embodiments of a method and system for decoding video data are described herein. In various embodiments, a high-compression-ratio codec (such as H.264) is part of the encoding scheme for the video data. Embodiments pre-process control maps that were generated from encoded video data, and generating intermediate control maps comprising information regarding decoding the video data. The control maps include information regarding rearranging the video data to be processed in parallel on multiple pipelines of a graphics processing unit (GPU) so as to optimize the use of the multiple pipelines. In an embodiment, decoding is performed on a frame basis such that each of multiple, distinct decoding operations is performed on an entire frame at one time. In other embodiments, processing of different frames is interleaved. Embodiments increase the efficiency of the decoding such as to allow decoding of high-compression-ratio encoded video data on personal computers or comparable equipment without special, additional decoding hardware.

Parallel decoding method and system for highly compressed data

Embodiments of a method and system for inter-prediction in decoding video data are described herein. In various embodiments, a high-compression-ratio codec (such as H.264) is part of the encoding scheme for the video data. Embodiments pre-process control maps that were generated from encoded video data, and generating intermediate control maps comprising information regarding decoding the video data. The control maps indicate which units of video data in a frame are to be processed using an inter-prediction operation. In an embodiment, inter-prediction is performed on a frame basis such that inter-prediction is performed on an entire frame at one time. In other embodiments, processing of different frames is interleaved. Embodiments increase the efficiency of the inter-prediction such as to allow decoding of high-compression-ratio encoded video data on personal computers or comparable equipment without special, additional decoding hardware.

Method and system for inter-prediction in decoding of video data

A filtering method and apparatus for anti-aliasing takes advantage of improved existing hardware by using as input the data stored in the multisampling anti-aliasing (MSAA) buffers after rendering. The standard hardware box-filter is then replaced with a more intelligent resolve implemented using shader programs. Embodiments find scene edges using existing samples generated by Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) hardware. Using samples from a footprint larger than a single pixel, a gradient is calculated matching the direction of an edge. A non-linear filter over contributing samples in the direction of the gradient gives the final result.

Filtering method and apparatus for anti-aliasing

Embodiments of a filtering method and apparatus for anti-aliasing as described herein take advantage of improved existing hardware by using as input the data stored in the multisampling anti-aliasing (MSAA) buffers after rendering. The standard hardware box-filter is then replaced with a more intelligent resolve implemented using shader programs. Embodiments find scene edges using existing samples generated by Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) hardware. Using samples from a footprint larger than a single pixel, a gradient is calculated matching the direction of an edge. A non-linear filter over contributing samples in the direction of the gradient gives the final result.

Embodiments of a method and system for intra-prediction in decoding video data are described herein. In various embodiments, a high-compression-ratio codec (such as H.264) is part of the encoding scheme for the video data. Embodiments pre-process control maps that were generated from encoded video data, and generating intermediate control maps comprising information regarding decoding the video data. The control maps indicate which units of video data in a frame are to be processed using an intra-prediction operation. In an embodiment, intra-prediction is performed on a frame basis such that intra-prediction is performed on an entire frame at one time. In other embodiments, processing of different frames is interleaved. Embodiments increase the efficiency of the intra-prediction such as to allow decoding of high-compression-ratio encoded video data on personal computers or comparable equipment without special, additional decoding hardware.

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San Francisco, CA, United States of America

Jason Yang