Apple Inc.

John Kenneth Stauffer

Bob Beretta

Ken Dyke

John Donald Rosasco

Kenneth Christian Dyke

Michael K Larson

Charlie Lao

Jeremy Sandmel

Geoff Stahl

Robert Beretta

Changan Lao

Accessing a shared buffer can include receiving an identifier associated with a buffer from a sending process, requesting one or more attributes corresponding to the buffer based on the received identifier, mapping at least a first page of the buffer in accordance with the one or more requested attributes, and accessing an item of data stored in the buffer by the sending process. The identifier also can comprise a unique identifier. Further, the identifier can be passed to one or more other processes. Additionally, the one or more requested attributes can include at least one of a pointer to a memory location and a property describing the buffer.

Systems and methods for managing memory core surface

Virtualization of graphics resources and thread blocking is disclosed. In one exemplary embodiment, a system and method of a kernel in an operating system including generating a data structure having an identifier of a graphics resource assigned to a physical memory location in video memory, and blocking access to the physical memory location if a data within the physical memory location is in transition between video memory and system memory wherein a client application accesses memory in the system memory directly and accesses memory in the video memory through a virtual memory map.

Virtualization of graphics resources and thread blocking

Methods, apparatuses, systems, and machine readable media for pixel transformations. One exemplary method includes: determining a state of a pixel format transformation, wherein a pixel format includes a predetermined number of pixel data components and a predetermined number of bits for each of the pixel data components and wherein the state includes a source pixel format and a destination pixel format and at least one intermediate pixel format; converting pixel data in the source pixel format to pixel data in the intermediate pixel format; and converting the pixel data in the intermediate pixel format to pixel data in the destination pixel format. In certain embodiments, a method includes building and compiling a function, at run-time, for the pixel format transformation based upon the state.

Methods and apparatuses for pixel transformations

Methods and apparatuses to create and manage volatile graphics objects in a video memory are disclosed. An object is created and marked as volatile. The volatile object is stored in a video memory of a graphics subsystem. A volatile marking indicates that data for an object is not to be paged out from the video memory to make room for other data. The video memory space occupied by the volatile object is indicated as a volatile storage, in a data structure. Another object is written into at least a portion of the video memory space, which is occupied by the volatile object, without paging out data for the volatile object. In one embodiment, at least a portion of the volatile object is referenced or used while another object is formed. The volatile object may be discarded after being referenced or used to form another object.

Methods and systems for processing objects in memory

A window surface associated with a first application is automatically detected as an exclusive window surface for a display. In response, the system automatically transitions to a full-screen mode in which a graphics processor flushes content to the display. The full-screen mode includes flipping between a front surface buffer and a back surface buffer associated with the first application. It is subsequently detected that the window surface associated with the first application is not an exclusive window surface for the display. In response, the system automatically transitions to a windowed mode in which the graphics processor flushes content to the display. In windowed mode, the system frame buffer is flushed to the display. The transition to windowed mode includes a minimum number of buffer content copy operations between the front surface buffer, the back surface buffer and the system frame buffer.

Memory management based on automatic full-screen detection

Graphics resources are virtualized through an interlace between graphics hardware and graphics clients. The interface allocates the graphics resources across multiple graphics clients, processes commands for access to the graphics resources from the graphics clients, and resolves conflicts for the graphics resources among the clients.

Virtualization of graphics resources

Graphics resources are virtualized through an interface between graphics hardware and graphics clients. The interface allocates the graphics resources across multiple graphics clients, processes commands for access to the graphics resources from the graphics clients, and resolves conflicts for the graphics resources among the clients.

Growing community of inventors

Gilroy, CA, United States of America

John Kenneth Stauffer