Patent · US Active

System and method for dynamically load balancing multiple shader stages in a shared pool of processing units

US8144149B2 · kind B2 · utility

12Cited by
14References
11Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateApr 19, 2006
Grant dateMar 27, 2012
Priority date
Expiry dateOct 25, 2028

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06T15/80
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

The present disclosure is directed to novel methods and apparatus for managing or performing the dynamic allocation or reallocation of processing resources among a vertex shader, a geometry shader, and pixel shader of a graphics processing unit. In one embodiment a method for graphics processing comprises assigning at least one execution unit to each of a plurality of shader units, the plurality of shader units comprising a vertex shader, a geometry shader, and a pixel shader, wherein an execution unit assigned to a given shader unit performs processing tasks for only that shader unit, determining that one of the plurality of shader units is bottlenecked, and reassigning at least one execution unit from a non-bottlenecked shader unit to the shader unit determined to be bottlenecked.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.