Synchronization for a multi-port frame buffer on a mesh-connected multicomputer

Parallel rendering on multicomputers involves the parallelization of geometry processing, rasterization and composition. A known approach to support the back end of parallel rendering on multicomputers is to connect a multiport frame buffer directly to the multicomputer routing network to take advantage of the aggregate bandwidth available on the network. However, a multi-port frame buffer design raises the question of how to synchronize the processors with the frame buffer in order to perform global control operations. The challenge is to provide a simple and efficient synchronization algorithm that requires minimal hardware support. This paper describes a softwarebased solution to the synchronization problem for a multiport frame buffer on the Paragon mesh routing network. Simulations on the Paragon multicomputer show that our algorithm is indeed efficient.