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A Compressed Depth Cache

Hasselgren, Jon ; Andersson, Magnus LU ; Nilsson, Jim and Akenine-Möller, Tomas LU (2012) In Journal of Computer Graphics Techniques 1(1). p.101-118
Abstract
We propose a depth cache that keeps the depth data in compressed format, when possible. Compared to previous work, this requires a more flexible cache implementation, where a tile may occupy a variable number of cache lines depending on whether it can be compressed or not. The advantage of this is that the effective cache size increases proportionally to the compression ratio. We show that the depth-buffer bandwidth can be reduced, on average, by 17%, compared to a system compressing the data after the cache. Alternatively, and perhaps more interestingly, we show that pre-cache compression in all cases increases the effective cache size by a factor of two or more, compared to a post-cache compressor, at equal or higher performance.
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author
; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
Journal of Computer Graphics Techniques
volume
1
issue
1
pages
101 - 118
publisher
Williams College
ISSN
2331-7418
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
85a5b1b6-54f4-45dc-9452-1ddfe40d0870 (old id 7759085)
alternative location
http://fileadmin.cs.lth.se/graphics/research/papers/2012/compresseddepth/
date added to LUP
2016-04-04 14:29:04
date last changed
2021-05-06 16:54:08
@article{85a5b1b6-54f4-45dc-9452-1ddfe40d0870,
  abstract     = {{We propose a depth cache that keeps the depth data in compressed format, when possible. Compared to previous work, this requires a more flexible cache implementation, where a tile may occupy a variable number of cache lines depending on whether it can be compressed or not. The advantage of this is that the effective cache size increases proportionally to the compression ratio. We show that the depth-buffer bandwidth can be reduced, on average, by 17%, compared to a system compressing the data after the cache. Alternatively, and perhaps more interestingly, we show that pre-cache compression in all cases increases the effective cache size by a factor of two or more, compared to a post-cache compressor, at equal or higher performance.}},
  author       = {{Hasselgren, Jon and Andersson, Magnus and Nilsson, Jim and Akenine-Möller, Tomas}},
  issn         = {{2331-7418}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{1}},
  pages        = {{101--118}},
  publisher    = {{Williams College}},
  series       = {{Journal of Computer Graphics Techniques}},
  title        = {{A Compressed Depth Cache}},
  url          = {{http://fileadmin.cs.lth.se/graphics/research/papers/2012/compresseddepth/}},
  volume       = {{1}},
  year         = {{2012}},
}