Native Sampler Feedback Path for Flexible Mip Region Mapping
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional sampler feedback solutions in graphics processing architectures involve complex custom shaders and limited support for texture region sizes, leading to performance degradation.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a native sampler feedback technology that bypasses color compression surfaces and uses native copy and clear operations to transfer mip region and minimum mip information directly between feedback maps and application resources, allowing broader support for texture region sizes and efficient cache writes.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Device complexity
If conventional sampler feedback solutions use color compression surfaces and custom shaders, then sampler feedback functionality is provided, but device complexity increases and performance degrades
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and removes the color compression surface (CCS) component from the sampler feedback path. Instead of routing feedback through the CCS, the invention directly writes feedback data to the feedback map, eliminating the need for complex custom shaders and CCS operations. This extraction of the unnecessary intermediary component resolves the contradiction by reducing device complexity while maintaining or improving performance.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a direct intermediary pathway from the sampler to the feedback map, bypassing the color compression surface. This new intermediary mechanism (direct write path) eliminates the need for complex shader operations and CCS processing, thereby reducing device complexity and improving performance simultaneously.
2Adaptability or versatility
If conventional solutions support limited texture region sizes, then implementation is simpler, but adaptability decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a universal feedback mechanism that handles multiple texture region sizes (2x2, 4x4, 8x8, and arbitrary sizes) through the same direct write path to the feedback map. This universal approach eliminates the need for separate handling logic for different region sizes, thereby increasing adaptability while keeping implementation complexity low.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the parameter of texture region size support from limited fixed sizes to arbitrary sizes by using a flexible direct write approach. The feedback map can accommodate any region size without requiring changes to the underlying implementation, thus increasing adaptability without proportionally increasing complexity.
3Productivity
If conventional solutions use color compression surfaces for feedback, then feedback functionality is achieved, but cache write efficiency decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and removes the color compression surface from the feedback path, directly writing feedback data to the feedback map. This elimination of the CCS intermediary eliminates the associated cache write inefficiencies and complexity, thereby improving cache write efficiency while reducing device complexity.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods, systems and apparatuses may provide for hardware sampler technology that determines mip region dimensions of a feedback map based on a description of the feedback map, identifies accessed texels in a texture based on a view of a resource that is paired with the feedback map, and records the accessed texels in the feedback map based on the mip region dimensions.