PC-based computing system employing a bridge chip having a routing unit and a control unit for parallelizing multiple GPU-driven pipeline cores during the running of a graphics application

摘要

A PC-based computing system employing a bridge chip having a routing unit and a control unit for parallelizing multiple GPU-driven pipeline cores during a graphics application. The PC-based computing system includes system memory for storing software graphics applications, software drivers and graphics libraries, and an operating system (OS), stored in the system memory, and a central processing unit (CPU), for executing the OS, graphics applications, drivers and graphics libraries. The system also includes a CPU bus and a bridge chip having a routing unit and a control unit. The routing unit interfaces the CPU and GPU-driven pipeline cores and (i) routes the stream of geometrical data and graphic commands from the graphics application to one or more of the GPU-driven pipeline cores, and (ii) routes pixel data output from one or more of GPU-driven pipeline cores during the composition of frames of pixel data corresponding to final images for display on the display surface. The control unit accepts commands from the software multi-pipe drivers, and controls components within the bridge chip, including the routing unit.