Nvidia Corporation

Thomas Roell

Jerome Francis Duluk, Jr

Patrick Richard Brown

James C Bowman

One embodiment of the present invention sets forth a technique for splitting a set of vertices into a plurality of batches for processing. The method includes receiving one or more primitives each containing an associated set of vertices. For each of the one or more primitives, one or more vertices are gathered from the set of vertices, the vertices are arranged into one or more batches, the batch is routed to a processing pipeline line to process each batch as a separate primitive, and the one or more batches are processed to produce results identical to those of processing the entire primitive as a single entity.

Methods to facilitate primitive batching

One embodiment of the present invention sets forth a technique for reducing overhead associated with transmitting primitive draw commands from memory to a graphics processing unit (GPU). Command pairs comprising an end draw command and a begin draw command associated with a conventional graphics application programming interface (API) are selectively replaced with a new construct. The new construct is a reset topology index, which implements a combined function of the end draw command and begin draw command. The new construct improves efficiency by reducing total data transmitted from memory to the GPU.

Restart index that sets a topology

One embodiment of the present invention sets forth a technique for reducing the overhead for transmitting explicit begin and explicit end commands that are needed in primitive draw command sequences. A draw method includes a header to specify an implicit begin command, an implicit end command, and instancing information for a primitive draw command sequence. The header is followed by a packet including one or more data words (dwords) that each specify a primitive topology, starting offset into a vertex or index buffer, and vertex or index count. Only a single clock cycle is consumed to transmit and process the header. The performance of graphics application programs that have many small batches of geometry (as is typical of many workstation applications) may be improved since the overhead of transmitting and processing the explicit begin and explicit end draw commands is reduced.

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Denver, CO, United States of America

Thomas Roell