The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jun. 08, 2021
Filed:
Jan. 21, 2020
Arm Limited, Cambridge, GB;
Andreas Due Engh-Halstvedt, Trondheim, NO;
Alexander Eugene Chalfin, Mountain View, CA (US);
Frode Heggelund, Trondheim, NO;
Arm Limited, Cambridge, GB;
Abstract
A graphics processor that performs early depth tests for primitives in respect of patches of a render output, and depth tests for sampling positions of the render output, maintains a per patch depth buffer that stores depth values for patches for use by the patch early depth test and a per sample depth buffer. When processing of a render output is stopped before the render output is finished, the per sample depth values in the per sample depth buffer are written to storage so that those values can be restored, but the per patch depth value information in the per patch depth buffer is discarded. Then, when processing of the render output is resumed, the per sample depth buffer values are loaded into a per sample depth buffer, and the loaded per sample depth buffer values are also used to restore the per patch depth buffer.