Magnified texture-mapped pixel performance in a single-pixel pipeline

A system for improving magnified textured pixel performance in a computational pipeline, comprising:

• one or more texture address generators, operable to generate two textured pixel addresses corresponding to two pixels;
• control logic, operable to examine texel requirements of each of the two textured pixel addresses in order to create control bits indicating whether the two pixels have identical texel composition;
• a merge unit operable to create a combined texel structure if the control bits indicate identical texel composition for the two pixels, wherein the combined texel structure comprises the two textured pixel addresses merged together;
• a texture memory unit operable to receive the combined texel structure from the merge unit, wherein the texture memory unit is further operable to generate texel data;
• and
• one or more texture filters operable to receive the texel data from the texture memory unit and to filter the texel data to generate two textured pixels.

A system comprising:

• a first and second texture filter;
• a texture memory;
• a first and second texture address generator configured to generate a first and second pair of texture coordinates in response to receiving a first and second pixel position respectively;
• a merge unit configured to determine if the first and second pair of texture coordinates correspond to a common set of texels on a texture map, and to send a single request for the common set of texels to the texture memory unit if the first and second pair of texture coordinates correspond to the common set of texels;
• wherein the texture memory unit is configured to provide the common set of texels to the first and second texel filters in response to the single request;
• wherein the first and second texture filters are configured to filter the common set of texels to generate a first and second texture value respectively for the first and second pixel position respectively.

A system for improving magnified texture-mapped pixel performance in a computational pipeline, comprising:

• means for generating two textured pixel addresses corresponding to two pixels;
• means for examining the two textured pixel addresses in order to determine if the two pixels correspond to a common set of texels;
• means for merging the two textured pixel addresses if said examining results in a common set of texels for the two pixels, wherein said merging operates to create a combined texel structure;
• means for generating texel data in response to receiving the combined texel structure;
• and
• means for filtering the texel data in order to generate a first and a second texture value.

A method for improving magnified texture-mapped pixel performance in a computational pipeline, comprising:

• generating two textured pixel addresses corresponding to two pixels using one or more texture address generators;
• examining the two textured pixel addresses received from the one or more texture address generators using a merge unit in order to determine if the two pixels correspond to a common set of texels;
• merging the two textured pixel addresses if said examining results in a common set of texels for the two pixels, wherein merging operates to create a combined texel structure;
• generating texel data in response to receiving the combined texel structure using a texture memory unit;
• and
• filtering the texel data received from the texture memory unit using one or more texture filters in order to generate a first and a second texture value.