CONFIGURING RESOURCES USED BY A GRAPHICS PROCESSING UNIT

摘要

A resource used by a shader executed by a graphics processing unit is referenced using a “descriptor”. Descriptors are grouped together in memory called a descriptor heap. Applications allocate and store descriptors in descriptor heaps. Applications also create one or more descriptor tables specifying a subrange of a descriptor heap. To bind resources to a shader, descriptors are first loaded into a descriptor heap. When the resources are to be used by a set of executing shaders, descriptor tables are defined on the GPU identifying ranges within the descriptor heap. Shaders, when executing, refer to the currently defined descriptor tables to access the resources made available to them. If the shader is to be executed again with different resources, and if those resources are already in memory and specified in the descriptor heap, then the descriptor tables are changed to specify different ranges of the descriptor heap.

主权项

1. A computer system, comprising:
a central processing unit; a graphics processing unit; memory accessible by the graphics processing unit during execution of commands; the central processing unit executing an operating system that manages access by applications running on the central processing unit to resources in the computer system including the graphics processing unit and memory, the operating system supporting an application programming interface managing execution of commands by the graphics processing unit and through which the applications specify commands to the graphics processing unit, the commands including specifying shaders to be executed by the graphics processing unit and resources to be used by the shaders, the resources being accessed using descriptors stored in the memory, the descriptors being stored in one or more descriptor heaps referenced by one or more descriptor tables, with a descriptor table being defined as a range within a descriptor heap, wherein the shader receives an indication of a descriptor table specifying the descriptors for resources to be accessed.