Inventors:
John R. Nickolls - Los Altos CA, US
Brian Fahs - Los Altos CA, US
Lars Nyland - Carrboro NC, US
John Erik Lindholm - Saratoga CA, US
Richard Craig Johnson - Cary NC, US
International Classification:
G06F 12/00
Abstract:
One embodiment of the present invention sets forth a technique for a program to access multi-dimensional formatted graphics surface memory. Multi-dimensional memory objects called “surfaces” stored in a user-specified data or pixel format and arranged in a graphics optimized layout are accessed by programs using surface instructions. A set of memory access instructions e.g., load, store, reduce, and atomic, referred to as surface instructions, may be used to access the surfaces. Coordinate bounds checking is performed with configurable clamping. Caching behavior may also be specified by the surface instructions. Data format conversion and packing to a specified storage format is supported for store, reduction, and atomic surface instructions. Data format conversion and unpacking from a specified storage format is supported for loads and atomic surface instructions.