METHODS AND APPARATUSES FOR COALESCING FUNCTION CALLS FOR RAY-TRACING

Methods and systems for executing threads in a thread-group, for example for ray-tracing. The threads are processed to collect, for each thread, a respective set of function call indicators over a respective number of call instances. The function call indicators are reordered across all threads and all call instances, to coalesce identical function call indicators to a common call instance, and non-identical function call indicators are reordered to different call instances. Function calls are executed across the threads of the thread-group, according to the reordered and coalesced function call indicators. In ray-tracing applications, the threads represent rays, each call instance is a ray-hit of a ray, and each function call is a shader call.