Memory management for multicore 3-d graphics rendering

Abstract

A multicore graphics rendering system is disclosed, comprising a plurality of cores configured to implement tile-based rendering of a stream of primitives. First cores are configured to process groups of primitives, to produce transformed geometry data. The transformed geometry data describes, for each of a plurality of tiles, the primitives processed by each first core that are present in that tile, each group being associated with a group index. The group indices define the ordering of the groups in the stream of primitives. An allocation list (ALIST) stores, for each portion of memory written to by the first cores, an indication of a part of the frame with which that portion is associated, and the latest group index of the transformed geometry data written to the portion. The ALIST is used to identify, and free, portions of memory that have been fully consumed in a partial render.