Qualcomm Incorporated

Xuefeng Tang

Andrew Evan Gruber

Tao Wang

Jian Liang

Avinash Seetharamaiah

Jonnala Gadda Nagendra Kumar

Srihari Babu Alla

Thomas Edwin Frisinger

Eric Demers

Nigel Terence Poole

Shambhoo Khandelwal

Adimulam Ramesh Babu

Yang Xia

The present disclosure relates to methods and apparatus for graphics processing. An example method generally includes receiving, at a graphics processing unit (GPU), a plurality of commands corresponding to a plurality of draws across a frame, each of the plurality of commands indicating a depth test direction with respect to a low-resolution depth (LRZ) buffer for the corresponding draw. The method generally includes maintaining, at the GPU, a LRZ status buffer to store a corresponding depth test direction for a first command in time of the plurality of commands processed by the GPU. The method generally includes disabling, at the GPU, use of the LRZ buffer for depth testing for any of the plurality of commands remaining unprocessed after processing a command of the plurality of commands having a different depth test direction than the corresponding depth test direction stored in the LRZ status buffer.

GPU hardware-based depth buffer direction tracking

The present disclosure relates to methods and apparatus of operation of a processing unit. The apparatus can update a first context register of one or more context registers based on a first programming state. In some aspects, the one or more context registers can be associated with at least one processing unit cluster in a graphics processing pipeline of the processing unit. The apparatus can execute a first draw call function corresponding to the first programming state. The apparatus can determine whether at least one additional first draw call function corresponds to the first programming state. In some aspects, the at least one additional first draw call function can follow the first draw call function in the graphics processing pipeline. Also, the apparatus can execute the at least one additional first draw call function when the at least one additional first draw call function corresponds to the first programming state.

Methods and apparatus for GPU context register management

A graphics processing unit (GPU) may determine a workload of a fragment shader program that executes on the GPU. The GPU may compare the workload of the fragment shader program to a threshold. In response to determining that the workload of the fragment shader program is lower than a specified threshold, the fragment shader program may process one or more fragments without the GPU performing early depth testing of the one or more fragments before the processing by the fragment shader program. The GPU may perform, after processing by the fragment shader program, late depth testing of the one or more fragments to result in one or more non-occluded fragments. The GPU may write pixel values for the one or more non-occluded fragments into a frame buffer.

Dynamically switching between late depth testing and conservative depth testing

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San Diego, CA, United States of America

Xuefeng Tang