Patent ID: 11922566
Assignee: IMAGINATION TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
Field: Computer technology (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC G | IPC G

Claim 18:
19. A method of performing coarse depth testing in a graphics processing system in which a rendering space is subdivided into a plurality of tiles, the method comprising:
receiving a set of one or more primitives related to one of the plurality of tiles;
obtaining a depth range for the tile, the depth range for the tile identifying a depth range based on primitives previously processed for the tile;
for at least one primitive in the set of one or more primitives, determining, based on the depth range for the tile, whether all of the primitive is hidden in the tile;
in response to determining that all of a primitive is hidden in the tile, discarding the primitive;
in response to determining that all of a primitive is not hidden in the tile, receiving one or more primitive fragments generated from the primitive;
for at least one received primitive fragment, determining, based on the depth range for the tile, whether the primitive fragment has better depth than the primitives previously processed for the tile according to a depth compare mode; and
in response to determining that a primitive fragment has better depth than the primitives previously processed for the tile, identifying the primitive fragment as not requiring a read of a depth buffer to perform full resolution depth testing.