System and method for virtual device access in a computer system

Details System and method for virtual device access in a computer system System and method for virtual device access in a computer system

1996-12-30

1999-04-20

Tung, Kee M.

Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system

Computer graphic processing system

Integrated circuit

345501, 345520, 395673, 395678, G06F 15167

Patent

active

058961410

ABSTRACT:
A system and method for virtual device access in a graphics computer is disclosed. The present invention enables applications running on a graphics computer to access the graphics hardware device with no per-transaction performance cost. Each time an application attempts to access the graphics hardware device, a hardware control manager either gives the application access to the graphics hardware device if no other application is currently accessing the hardware, or alternatively, if another application is currently accessing hardware, the hardware control manager instructs a signal handler associated with the application attempting access to perform a graphics context switch with the currently accessing application before the hardware control manager will give permission to the application attempting access to access the graphics hardware device. An important feature of the present invention is that the device dependent features are provided by user level code via the signal handler whereas the hardware control manager supports only device independent features. Another important feature of the present invention is the ability to automatically control data flow without incurring additional overhead.

REFERENCES:
patent: 5224210 (1993-06-01), Pinedo et al.
patent: 5371849 (1994-12-01), Peaslee et al.
patent: 5430841 (1995-07-01), Tannenbaum et al.
patent: 5469571 (1995-11-01), Bunnell

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