A COMPUTER SYSTEM HAVING A MULTIMEDIA BUS AND COMPRISING A CENTRALIZED I/O PROCESSOR WHICH PERFORMS INTELLIGENT DATA TRANSFERS

摘要

A computer system optimized for real-time applications which provides increased performance over current computer architectures. The system includes a standard local system bus or expansion bus, such as the PCI bus, and also includes a dedicated real-time bus or multimedia bus. Various multimedia devices are coupled to one or more of the expansion bus and/or the multimedia bus. The computer system includes a dedicated or centralized I/O processor coupled to one or more of the expansion bus and/or the multimedia bus which operates to direct or pull stream information through the system. The centralized I/O processor comprises a memory for storing data rate, data periodicity, data source, and data destination information for the multimedia devices. The computer system of the present invention thus provides much greater performance for real-time applications than prior systems.