Patent ID: 8179394

Claim:
A method for fine-grained rendering predication, the method comprising: dividing a graphics object into one or more batches of triangles; and generating a command buffer that includes: a first plurality of instructions to be executed by an integrated graphics processing unit (IGPU), wherein one or more instructions in the first plurality of instructions cause the IGPU to: process a first batch of triangles through a first graphics rendering pipeline to determine whether the first batch of triangles is to be culled, and write a first bit into a bitstream that indicates whether the first batch of triangles is to be culled, wherein the bitstream is stored in a memory and includes only a single bit for each batch of triangles in the one or more batches of triangles; and a second plurality of instructions to be executed by a discrete graphics processing unit (DGPU), wherein one or more instructions in the second plurality of instructions cause the DGPU to: read the first bit from the bitstream corresponding to the first batch of triangles, and process the first batch of triangles through a second rendering pipeline if the first bit indicates the first batch of triangles is not to be culled.