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:
Jan. 06, 2004
Filed:
Oct. 05, 1999
Timothy Van Hook, Atherton, CA (US);
Robert Mace, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
ATI Technologies Inc., Ontario, CA;
Abstract
The invention provides a method of providing commands to a command memory where a graphics processor will have commands available for execution as long as there are commands available. The command memory includes a first indicator to identify the command location most recently accessed by the graphics processor. A second indicator identifies the number of commands locations available to write commands based on the most recently accessed command location. As a result of the invention, the application processor only checks the availability of space to write commands after it has written enough commands to fill the command memory. On the graphics processor side, the command memory is never empty unless the graphics processor executes and consumes instructions faster than the instructions are written. It is also possible to associate a graphics mode with each address range. In this way, mode can be indicated without specifically sending mode information with each command.