A dynamic load balancing algorithm for sort-first rendering clusters

Load balancing determines the performance and scalability of sort-first rendering clusters. A dynamic load balancing algorithm based on deferred shading is presented. The proposed algorithm is based on the 2-pass rendering character of deferred shading to predict the rendering load distribution among the screen space. Utilizing fragment shaderings and alpha blending in GPU, the proposed algorithm can achieve per-pixel load distribution as a gray image in real-time. The paper also presented the screen space division strategy and the optimization methods to the proposed algorithm. Experiments show that the proposed algorithm can achieve dynamic load-balancing with little additional computation. Compared with other load balancing strategies, the proposed algorithm can distribute rendering load more uniformly among the rendering node and improve system's render performance prominently.