Local Shader Engine Culling for Deferred Attribute Shading
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Solution Overview
Problem
Traditional rendering techniques struggle to efficiently manage geometry and attribute data in graphics processing systems, leading to computational and memory bandwidth bottlenecks due to the processing of primitives that may be culled from the final scene.
Innovation Solution
Implementing deferred attribute shading techniques, where attribute computations are postponed until after initial culling operations, allowing computational resources to be focused only on visible primitives, using an acceleration unit (AU) with shader engines to perform initial culling and subsequent attribute shading.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If attribute computations are performed early in the rendering pipeline, then all primitives are processed for attribute shading, but this increases computational workload and memory bandwidth usage for primitives that may be culled later
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by performing culling operations before attribute shading. The geometry engine first determines which primitives are visible, and only then are attribute computations performed on the culled subset. This reverses the traditional order where attribute shading was performed on all primitives before culling, thereby avoiding unnecessary computations on invisible geometry.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts the culling operation as a separate preliminary step that removes invisible primitives from the processing pipeline before attribute shading. By taking out the invisible primitives early through visibility determination, the system avoids the harmful effect of processing attributes for primitives that will not contribute to the final image.
2Loss of information
If attribute data is computed for all primitives, then complete attribute information is available, but memory bandwidth consumption increases due to processing invisible geometry
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary culling to identify visible primitives before computing attribute data. This ensures that attribute information is only computed and stored for primitives that will actually be rendered, preventing waste of memory bandwidth on invisible geometry while maintaining complete attribute data for all visible primitives.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies local quality by differentiating the processing quality between visible and invisible primitives. Visible primitives receive full attribute computation and processing, while invisible primitives are culled early without attribute computation. This localized approach optimizes resource allocation by applying high-quality processing only where necessary.
3Reliability
If traditional rendering pipeline processes all primitives through all stages, then rendering completeness is ensured, but processing time increases due to unnecessary computations
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary culling as a gatekeeping step that determines which primitives proceed through the full rendering pipeline. By performing visibility determination early, the system ensures rendering completeness for visible primitives while eliminating invisible ones before they consume processing time in subsequent stages.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies partial action by processing only the necessary subset of primitives through the complete rendering pipeline. Instead of performing excessive processing on all primitives, the system performs partial processing on the culled subset, achieving the minimum necessary action to produce the correct final image without wasted computations.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and techniques are provided for deferred attribute shading operations in a graphics pipeline. A set of primitives is received by one or more shader engines of a processing core for rendering at least a portion of a scene. The shader engine(s) cull the received set of primitives by identifying a subset of the primitives that are potentially visible in the scene; generate intermediate data for the identified subset of primitives; generate attribute data values based on the intermediate data for the identified subset of primitives; and rasterize the identified subset of primitives for rendering based on the generated attribute data values.