Intel Corporation
USE OF INNER COVERAGE INFORMATION BY A CONSERVATIVE RASTERIZATION PIPELINE TO ENABLE EARLYZ FOR CONSERVATIVE RASTERIZATION

Abstract:

Embodiments described herein are generally directed to conservative rasterization pipeline configurations that allow EarlyZ to be enabled for conservative rasterization. An embodiment of a method includes a conservative rasterizer receiving a primitive to be rasterized. Based on vertices of the primitive, the rasterizer creates a pixel location stream and inner coverage data, indicative of whether the corresponding pixel is fully covered by the primitive or partially covered by the primitive, for each pixel within the pixel location stream. Based on the inner coverage data, pixels of the pixel location stream are grouped into a first group including those of the pixels that are fully covered by the primitive and a second group including those of pixels that are partially covered by the primitive. Separate pixel shader threads are then launched by the rasterizer for blocks of pixels of the first group and blocks of pixels of the second group.