Graphics primitives and positions through memory buffers

Abstract

Systems, apparatuses, and methods for preemptively reserving buffer space for primitives and positions in a graphics pipeline are disclosed. A system includes a graphics pipeline frontend with any number of geometry engines coupled to corresponding shader engines. Each geometry engine launches shader wavefronts to execute on a corresponding shader engine. The geometry engine preemptively reserves buffer space for each wavefront prior to the wavefront being launched on the shader engine. When the shader engine executes a wavefront, the shader engine exports primitive and position data to the reserved buffer space. Multiple scan converters will consume the primitive and position data, with each scan converter consuming primitive and position data based on the screen coverage of the scan converter. After consuming the primitive and position data, the scan converters mark the buffer space as freed so that the geometry engine can then allocate the freed buffer space to subsequent shader wavefronts.