Method for providing improved graphics performance through atypical pixel storage in video memory

摘要

A method for improving the performance of a graphics system includes the steps of allocating appropriate pixels to slices of memory such that corresponding subsets of bits of neighboring pixels are allocated to different slices of memory, where 'neighboring pixels' includes both consecutive pixels in a scan line, or pixels in consecutive scan lines. In addition, hardware is provided that allows for the individual memory slices to be independently accessed, thus allowed each slice to access data from a different 64 bit word in video memory during one video access period. Controllers which independently access the memory slices are advantageously totally time independent, to allow the most flexibility in the starting and finishing of the access of the memory slice. Performance is further gained by buffering of both the read and write requests to the video memory. Buffering requests allows reads and writes to neighboring locations to be merged to allow for the maximal bus utilization and minimizes the number of stalls in the video subsystem.