Intel Linux Driver Lands Tessellation/Geometry Distribution Feature For Xe-HPG

A new feature for upcoming XeHPG graphics that was merged into Intel's open-source Linux OpenGL and Vulkan drivers today was for tessellation distribution and geometry distribution across the graphics hardware.

A two-month-old merge request landed this evening for enabling the tessellation/geometry distribution functionality as found with upcoming XeHPG hardware in the form of the Intel ARC "Alchemist" (DG2) graphics cards.

Intel has seemingly talked little publicly at this point about this tessellation and geometry distribution support with the XeHPG hardware but just appears to be about distributing out the work for efficient processing. Ultimately it should help with the graphics performance.

In trying to dig up more on this forthcoming feature work, there was a 2016 patent filed by Intel for on-die tessellation distribution and another patent from 2016 assigned to Intel as well around load-balanced tessellation distribution for parallel architectures. Again, basically about splitting up the work to allow it to be handled more efficiently across the hardware.

The Mesa merge request adds the support for these new tessellation and geometry distribution modes. Both the Iris Gallium3D (OpenGL) and ANV (Vulkan) drivers can enjoy this functionality with next year's XeHPG hardware.

Landing of this Intel tessellation/geometry distribution missed the Mesa 21.3 cut-off but will be found in Mesa 22.0 due out in Q1'22.