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:
Mar. 22, 2016
Filed:
Nov. 26, 2007
Duncan A. Riach, Mountain View, CA (US);
Michael A. Ogrinc, San Francisco, CA (US);
Leslie E. Neft, Mountain View, CA (US);
Duncan A. Riach, Mountain View, CA (US);
Michael A. Ogrinc, San Francisco, CA (US);
Leslie E. Neft, Mountain View, CA (US);
NVIDIA Corporation, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
One embodiment of the present invention sets forth a technique for controlling mode switches in hardware. The resource manager includes an 'is mode possible' function that evaluates a given mode in conjunction with the limitations of the hardware to determine if the given mode is feasible. The display driver is configured to call this function to validate a proposed mode before generating commands specifying the state changes for the display heads. The display software interface hardware module within the GPU processes these commands and follows a standard sequence of steps to implement the mode switch. The steps may include interrupts to the resource manager to re-validate the proposed mode, again calling the 'is mode possible' function, or perform operations that are not yet supported in the hardware. Advantageously, controlling mode switches in hardware enables less error-prone, more efficient, and more discerning mode switches relative to controlling mode switches in software.