Nvidia Corporation

Jeffrey R Sewall

Franklin C Crow

Justin S Legakis

Walter Robert Steiner

Techniques for handling an interrupt in the rasterizer, in accordance with embodiment of the present technology, start with rasterizing one or more primitives of a first context. If an interrupt is received, the tile count of tiles of a current primitive that have been coarse rasterized is saved in a backing store. After storing the tile count, the one or more primitives of a second context are rasterized. After the second context is served, the coarse rasterization of the current primitive of the previous context is rerun without output until the tile corresponding to the stored tile count is coarse rasterized. Thereafter, rasterization of the current primitive of the first context from the next tile beyond the stored tile count is continued until rasterization is completed or another interrupt is received and the above described process is repeated.

Interrupt handling techniques in the rasterizer of a GPU

Techniques for handling an interrupt in the rasterizer, in accordance with embodiment of the present technology, start with rasterizing one or more primitives of a first context. If an interrupt is received, state information of the rasterizer is saved in a backing store after coarse rasterizing a given tile. After storing the raster state information, the one or more primitives of a second context are rasterized. After the second context is served, the raster state information of the first context is restored and rasterization of the one or more primitives of the first context is restarted.

A method for traversing pixels of an area is described. The method includes the steps of traversing a plurality of pixels of an image using a first boustrophedonic pattern along a predominant axis, and, during the traversal using the first boustrophedonic pattern, traversing a plurality of pixels of the image using a second boustrophedonic pattern. The second boustrophedonic pattern is nested within the first boustrophedonic pattern.

Nested boustrophedonic patterns for rasterization

A method and system for deferred coverage mask generation in a raster stage of a graphics processor. The method includes receiving a graphics primitive for rasterization in a raster stage of a graphics processor and performing a bounding box test on the graphics primitive to define a bounding rectangle for the graphics primitive. A combined coverage mask is then generated after the completion of the bounding box test. The combined coverage mask indicates a plurality of pixels that are covered by the graphics primitive. The combined coverage mask is divided into a plurality of sub-portions. The sub-portions are allocated to a plurality of raster components to determine sub-pixel coverage for the sub-portions.

Method and system for deferred coverage mask generation in a raster stage

A method for multiple queue output buffering in a raster stage of a graphics processor. The method includes receiving a graphics primitive for rasterization in a raster stage of a graphics processor. The graphics primitive is rasterized at a first level to generate a plurality of tiles of pixels related to the graphics primitive. Each tile is then rasterized to determine related sub-portions of each tile. The related sub-portions are transferred to a plurality of output queues. The related sub-portions are subsequently output on a per queue basis and on a per clock cycle basis.

Tile output using multiple queue output buffering in a raster stage

In a raster stage of a graphics pipeline, a method for accelerated start tile rasterization. The method includes defining a window for clipping a generated image and receiving a graphics primitive for rasterization in a raster stage of a graphics processor. A binary search related to the window is performed to determine a start tile having at least a partial coverage of the graphics primitive, wherein the start tile comprises a plurality of pixels. Based upon the start tile, the raster stage rasterizes the graphics primitive by generating a plurality of adjacent tiles having at least a partial coverage of the graphics primitive.

Accellerated start tile search

In one embodiment, the present invention is implemented as a GPU configured for traversing pixels of an area. The GPU includes a set-up unit for generating polygon descriptions and a rasterizer unit coupled to the set-up unit for rasterizing the polygon descriptions. The rasterizer unit is configured to traverse a plurality of pixels of an image using a first boustrophedonic pattern along a predominant axis, and during the traversal using the first boustrophedonic pattern, traverse a plurality of pixels of the image using a second boustrophedonic pattern, wherein the second boustrophedonic pattern is nested within the first boustrophedonic pattern.

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Pleasanton, CA, United States of America

Jeffrey R Sewall