Computer system having a distributed texture memory architecture

Abstract

A scaleable network based computer system having a distributed texture memory architecture. A network residing within the computer system is used to transmit packets between a host processor and a number of subsystems. Three basic types of subsystems are coupled to the network: a geometry subsystem is used to process primitives; a rasterization subsystem is used to render pixels; and a display subsystem is used to drive a computer monitor. Any number and combination of these three types of subsystems can be coupled to one or more network chips to implement a wide variety of configurations. One or more memory chips can be coupled to any of the rasterization subsystems. These memory chips are used to store texture data. A rasterization subsystem can access texture data from its associated memory chips or can request texture data residing within any of the other memory chips. The request is sent over the internal network; the requested texture data is packetized and sent over the internal network to the requesting rasterization subsystem. Because texture data is distributed across the internal network and is accessible to any and all rasterization subsystems, there is no need to store duplicate copies. Furthermore, the computer system is readily scaleable simply by adding the appropriate geometry, rasterization, or display subsystem. Likewise, texture memory is readily scalable simply by adding more memory chips.