Nvidia Corporation

Wei-Chao Chen

Rui Manuel Bastos

Emmett Michael Kilgariff

Jonah Matthew Alben

Mark J Kilgard

Cass Watson Everitt

Li-Yi Wei

Christian Rouet

Anjana Rajendran

Johnny S Rhoades

Douglas J Hahn

Methods and systems for texture mapping in a computer-implemented graphics pipeline are described. A sample group is identified as including a divergent pixel. A determination is made whether an operand of an instruction executing on the divergent pixel satisfies a condition. A scheme for determining a level of detail for the texture mapping is selected depending on whether or not the condition is satisfied.

Divergent and non-divergent texture fetches

A texture unit of a graphics processing unit provides the ability to switch among different filter modes depending upon shader program instructions that are received by the texture unit. One filter mode has the capability to extract filter weights that have been specified in a received shader program instruction rather than calculating the weights within the texture unit itself.

Method and system for processing texture samples with programmable filter weights

Methods and systems for processing fragment groups are described. Fragment groups that include z-only pixels are accessed. A z-only pixel has associated therewith two or more z-values instead of a single z-value. Fragment groups that are not covered by a geometric primitive are discarded, while fragment groups that are covered by a geometric primitive are forwarded to a shader pipeline.

Compaction of z-only samples

Systems and methods for dynamically canceling texture fetches may improve texture mapping performance. A shader program compiler inserts condition code writes and condition code comparison operations for shader program instructions that contribute to a texture read instruction and do not need to be executed if certain conditions are met. During execution of the shader program, the inserted condition codes are used to compute a dynamic writemask that indicates if the texture data resulting from the texture read is unnecessary. The dynamic writemask is used to cancel unnecessary texture fetches during execution of the shader program.

Dynamic texture fetch cancellation

A graphical shader and a method of distributing graphical data to shader pipelines in a graphical shader are disclosed. In accordance with the method, a shader pipeline input delay is set. Further, a group of the graphical data is distributed to a shader pipeline of the graphical shader to be processed. The method includes waiting for the shader pipeline input delay to elapse. After the shader pipeline input delay has elapsed, another group of the graphical data is distributed to another shader pipeline of the graphical shader to be processed. In another embodiment, a graphical shader includes a plurality of shader pipelines for processing graphical data. Further, the graphical shader includes a shader distributor for distributing a group of the graphical data to one of the shader pipelines and for distributing another group of the graphical data to another one of the shader pipelines after a shader pipeline input delay has elapsed.

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Wei-Chao Chen