Dynamic texture fetch cancellation

US7528843B1 · kind B1 · utility

Assignee

• NVIDIA Corporation · US

Inventors

• Mark J. Kilgard · Austin, US
• Rui M. Bastos · Santa Clara, US
• Johnny S. Rhoades · Durham, US
• Cass W. Everitt · Round Rock, US
• Wei-Chao Chen · San Jose, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Aug 12, 2005
• Grant date: May 5, 2009
• Expiry date: Apr 17, 2027

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G09G2360/121
• WIPO field: Audio-visual technology
• WIPO sector: Electrical engineering

Abstract

Systems and methods for dynamically canceling texture fetches may improve texture mapping performance. A shader program compiler inserts condition code writes and condition code comparison operations for shader program instructions that contribute to a texture read instruction and do not need to be executed if certain conditions are met. During execution of the shader program, the inserted condition codes are used to compute a dynamic writemask that indicates if the texture data resulting from the texture read is unnecessary. The dynamic writemask is used to cancel unnecessary texture fetches during execution of the shader program.