Patent ID: 8619079

Claim:
A system for 3-D graphics processing using ray tracing, comprising: a plurality of computation units, collectively capable of performing a sequence of ray tracing operations using a set of data elements, the ray tracing operations comprising operations to be performed during one or more of acceleration structure traversal and primitive intersection testing; an input buffer; a controller, for the plurality of computation units, coupled to the input buffer, the controller operable to determine a sequence of sets of data elements to be inputted to the plurality of computation units, wherein each set of input data elements is selected from data elements received at the input buffer, the input buffer operates asynchronously from the plurality of computation units for receiving groupings of data elements to be processed by the plurality of computation units, the groupings potentially having different numbers of data elements, and the controller is operable to aggregate data elements from groupings received at different times into one of the sets of data elements to be provided to the plurality of computation units, and to aggregate data elements from different sets of data elements, based on results received, from the plurality of computation units, for ray tracing operations performed for those sets of data elements, by determining that the results indicate a subsequent operation to be performed for some data elements of a set is different from other data elements of that set.