DYNAMIC FRAME REPETITION IN A VARIABLE REFRESH RATE SYSTEM

• US 20150348509A1
• Filed: 05/22/2015
• Published: 12/03/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 05/30/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NVIDIA Corporation
• Original Assignee: NVIDIA Corporation
• Inventors: Verbeure, Tom, Schutten, Robert Jan, Slavenburg, Gerrit A., Fox, Thomas F.
• Granted Patent: US 9,786,255 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 1/20 Processor architectures; Processor configuration, e.g. pipelining
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2340/0414 Vertical resolution change
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2340/0421 Horizontal resolution change
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2340/0435 Change or adaptation of the frame rate of the video stream
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2360/08 Power processing, i.e. workload management for processors involved in display operations, such as CPUs or GPUs
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2360/121 using a cache memory
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2360/18 Use of a frame buffer in a display terminal, inclusive of the display panel
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2370/022 Centralised management of display operation, e.g. in a server instead of locally
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 3/003 to produce spatial visual effects
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 3/32 semiconductive, e.g. using light-emitting diodes [LED]
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 3/3611 Control of matrices with row and column drivers
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 5/003 Details of a display terminal, the details relating to the control arrangement of the display terminal and to the interfaces thereto specific for a CRT G09G1/165; for a flat panel G09G3/2092
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 5/12 Synchronisation between the display unit and other units, e.g. other display units, video-disc players
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 5/18 Timing circuits for raster scan displays specially adapted for television H04N ; synchronisation between the display unit and other display units, videodisc player G09G5/12
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 5/393 Arrangements for updating the contents of the bit-mapped memory
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/04 Synchronising for television systems using pulse code modulation H04N7/56
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 9/3188 Scale or resolution adjustment scaling in general G06T3/40; resolution modifying circuits for displays in general G09G5/391

Abstract

A method, computer program product, and system for adjusting a dynamic refresh frequency of a display device are disclosed. The method includes the steps of obtaining a current frame duration associated with a first image, computing, based on the current frame duration, a repetition value for a second image, and repeating presentation of the second image on a display device based on the repetition value. The logic for implementing the method may be included in a graphics processing unit or within the display device itself.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

obtaining a current frame duration associated with a first image;

selecting, based on the current frame duration, a repetition value for a second image; and

repeating presentation of the second image on a display device based on the repetition value.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the display device is one of a liquid crystal display (LCD), a light emitting diode (LED) display, an organic light emitting diode (OLED) display, and an active-matrix OLED (AMOLED) display.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the display device refreshes a plurality of pixels in response to receiving a frame of image data via a video interface.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein obtaining the current frame duration associated with the first image comprises determining an estimate for the current frame duration by calculating a rendering time associated with the second image.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein obtaining the current frame duration associated with the first image comprises determining an estimate for the current frame duration by calculating an average rendering time associated with N previous images.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein selecting the repetition value for the second image comprises calculating a maximum repetition value by dividing a current frame duration by a minimum allowed frame duration for the display device to generate a first intermediate result, rounding the first intermediate result of the division operation down to the nearest integer value to generate a first rounded result, and subtracting one from the first rounded result to generate the maximum repetition value.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein selecting the repetition value for the second image comprises calculating a minimum repetition value by dividing the current frame duration by a maximum allowed frame duration for the display device to generate a second intermediate result, rounding the second intermediate result of the division operation up to the nearest integer value to generate a second rounded result, and subtracting one from the second rounded result to generate the minimum repetition value.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein selecting the repetition value for the second image comprises selecting the repetition value as an integer greater than or equal to the minimum repetition value and less than or equal to the maximum repetition value.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein a graphics processing unit (GPU) is configured to:

obtain the current frame duration associated with the first image; and

select the repetition value for the second image.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the GPU is further configured to cause the presentation of the second image to be repeated on the display device by re-encoding the pixel data associated with the second image in a video signal transmitted to the display device via an interface.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein a scaling unit of the display device is configured to:

obtain the current frame duration associated with the first image; and

compute the repetition value for the second image.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein a timing controller of the display device is configured to:

obtain the current frame duration associated with the first image; and

compute the repetition value for the second image.

13. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform steps comprising:

obtaining a current frame duration associated with a first image;

selecting, based on the current frame duration, a repetition value for a second image; and

repeating presentation of the second image on a display device based on the repetition value.

14. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein obtaining the current frame duration associated with the first image comprises determining an estimate for the current frame duration by calculating a rendering time associated with the second image.

15. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein selecting the repetition value for the second image comprises calculating a maximum repetition value by dividing a current frame duration by a minimum allowed frame duration for the display device to generate a first intermediate result, rounding the first intermediate result of the division operation down to the nearest integer value to generate a first rounded result, and subtracting one from the first rounded result to generate the maximum repetition value.

16. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein selecting the repetition value for the second image comprises calculating a minimum repetition value by dividing the current frame duration by a maximum allowed frame duration for the display device to generate a second intermediate result, rounding the second intermediate result of the division operation up to the nearest integer value to generate a second rounded result, and subtracting one from the second rounded result to generate the minimum repetition value;

and selecting the repetition value as an integer greater than or equal to the minimum repetition value and less than or equal to the maximum repetition value.

17. A system, comprising:

a processor configured to;

obtain a current frame duration associated with a first image,

select, based on the current frame duration, a repetition value for a second image, and

repeat presentation of the second image on a display device based on the repetition value.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein obtaining the current frame duration associated with the first image comprises determining an estimate for the current frame duration by calculating a rendering time associated with the second image.

19. The system of claim 17, wherein the processor is a graphics processing unit (GPU).

20. The system of claim 17, wherein the processor is one of a scaling unit included in the display device and a timing controller included in the display device.