Method and apparatus for co-processing video graphics data
US6184908A · kind A · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Apr 27, 1998 |
| Grant date | Feb 6, 2001 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Apr 27, 2018 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG06T15/005
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
To minimize CPU processing requirements for preparing and transferring data to a graphics processor, a graphics command processor is provided that supports application-level commands and references to the data associated with these commands. The graphics command processor parses the application command and data reference parameters, and subsequently fetches the appropriate graphics data from memory directly, without requiring additional CPU resources. To optimize performance, the graphics command processor fetches the data in parallel with the parsing and processing of the application commands from the CPU. The graphics command processor also includes a processing unit that converts the data from the format used by the application program to the format used for rendering. The graphics command processor creates the commands and data sequences used by a graphics engine to render each object of the image. Because the graphics command processor is closely coupled with the graphics engine, a number of efficiency can be gained, particularly with regard to the transfer of related data items. The processing of the primitive graphic command and data sequences by the graphics engine is async…
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.