GENERATING EVENT SIGNALS FOR PERFORMANCE REGISTER CONTROL USING NON-OPERATIVE INSTRUCTIONS

One embodiment of an instruction decoder includes an instruction parser configured to process a first non-operative instruction and to generate a first event signal corresponding to the first non-operative instruction, and a first event multiplexer configured to receive the first event signal from the instruction parser, to select the first event signal from one or more event signals and to transmit the first event signal to an event logic block. The instruction decoder may be implemented in a multithreaded processing unit, such as a shader unit, and the occurrences of the first event signal may be tracked when one or more threads are executed within the processing unit. The resulting event signal count may provide a designer with a better understanding of the behavior of a program, such as a shader program, executed within the processing unit, thereby facilitating overall processing unit and program design.