System and method for leveraging independent innovation in entertainment content and graphics hardware
View Patent ↗A system and method is presented that leverages independent innovation in entertainment content and graphics hardware. In this system and method, the current image generation run-time application is replaced with a new framework defining the connectivity, features, and behavior necessary to implement a graphics system. All this takes place in the context of a software platform utilizing a late-integration mechanism that dynamically integrates the various real-time components in a run-time application. Ultimately displacing hardware as the central focus of development efforts, this software platform functionally is the graphics application, at least as viewed by the simulation host computer, database developers, and those responsible for visual system procurement and maintenance. An innovative software architecture, the Graphical Application Platform (GAP) is presented. The GAP builds on image generator, workstation, and scene graph success by extending the concepts of platform and framework into the real-time graphics domain—bridging the gap between image generation concerns and contemporary hardware and software realities by decoupling content, hardware and applications. This new approach also provides technology to address emerging concerns related to the selection and acquisition processes in the context of new low-cost, high-performance graphics hardware.
1. A method for supporting development of content independent of multiple hardware platforms, comprising:
storing components, each including a plurality of alternate implementations for providing analogous functions, each of the alternate implementations comprising at least one executable block and a list of resources needed by said alternate implementation;
for each component including a set of alternate implementations, selecting an implementation from among the set of alternate implementations based on characteristics of the hardware platform and a negotiation process in which resource requirements of each alternative implementation are considered, along with the costs and benefits of variations in such resource requirements, thereby allowing selection of an implementation, wherein the selecting, the implementations and the negotiation process are performed automatically;
storing an application graph that expresses the identity of the blocks of the selected ones of the alternate implementations and data connectivity between the blocks; and
traversing the application graph at run-time, including executing appropriate ones of the selected blocks on the selected target hardware platform.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the content comprises game content, and the multiple hardware platforms include at least one of a game console platform and a personal computer platform.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein each of said alternative implementations comprises:
blocks corresponding to said alternative implementation;
identification of resources needed by said alternative implementation; and
identification of resources provided by said alternative implementation.
4. A method of pre-processing a graphics application with respect to a predefined hardware platform, comprising:
loading a plurality of components into memory, at least some of the components including a set of alternative implementations providing analogous functions, each of the set of alternative implementations including a list of resources required to implement each of the alternative implementations;
for each component including a set of alternative implementations, automatically selecting an implementation from among the set of alternative implementations based on characteristics of the hardware platform and an automatically performed negotiation process in which resource requirements of each alternative implementation are considered, along with the costs and benefits of variations in such resource requirements, thereby allowing selection of an implementation;
mapping blocks, corresponding to the selected implementations, to a phase of execution;
mapping the phase of execution to a stage of execution;
creating an execution order list, for the blocks, corresponding to the stage of execution;
submitting the stage of execution to an application real time kernel for management of execution of the stage; and
executing the blocks of the submitted stage.