Expanding Video Memory through Texture Migration for Out-of-core Shading

Shading is a common process in graphic applications, especially in game applications. Complex applications require complex shading algorithms and more memory resource. In this paper, We present an approach to extend a capacity of video memory in a graphic processing device in heterogeneous system. We offer to migrate textures used in shading process between a host and a device using an out-of-core algorithm without deteriorating the performance. We take an advantage of min-heap to store the textures and support the out-of-core algorithm in selection of which texture to be migrated. Our method embedding in a graphic engine can allocate rendering resources more than the limit given by the video memory while keeping correct rendering results.