Slice blend extension for accumulation buffering

A method comprising:

• (a) reading a first stream of image pixels from an image buffer;
• (b) reading a second stream of pixels from an accumulation buffer;
• (c) blending each image pixel with the corresponding accumulation buffer pixel based on an alpha value provided with the image pixel, and thus, generating a third stream of output pixels;
• and
• (d) transferring the third stream of output pixels to the accumulation buffer.

A graphics system comprising:

• a frame buffer;
• a texture buffer;
• a hardware accelerator configured to read image pixels from the frame buffer, to read pixels of an accumulation buffer in the texture buffer, to blend each of the image pixels with the corresponding accumulation buffer pixel with the blend fraction being the α value of the image pixel;
• wherein the output pixels resulting from said blending are transferred to the accumulation buffer in the texture buffer.