Methods of and apparatus for using textures in graphics processing systems

A graphics processing system, comprising:

• a graphics processing unit that can use graphics textures to generate texturing result data for use when generating rendering output data to be generated by the graphics processing unit;
• and
• processing circuitry configured to associate respective sub-regions within a given mipmap level of a graphics texture to be used by the graphics processing unit to generate texturing result data with respective fade factor values that can be set by an application that is to use the texture;
• and
• wherein the graphics processing unit comprises processing circuitry configured to, when the graphics processing unit is to use a sub-region of a mipmap level of a texture that has an associated fade factor value to generate texturing result data, control the contribution of texture data from the mipmap level sub-region to the generated texturing result data in accordance with the fade factor value associated with the mipmap level sub-region.

A data processing system comprising:

• a host system;
• a graphics processing system;
• and
• a storage medium of or accessible to the host system that can store textures for use by the graphics processing system;
• and
• wherein:
• the host system comprises:
• a host processor that can execute applications that require graphics processing operations of the graphics processing system;
• and
• processing circuitry for loading pages of textures that are stored in the storage medium of or accessible to the host system into the local memory of the graphics processing system for use by the graphics processing system to generate texturing output data;
• and
• the graphics processing system comprises:
• a graphics processing unit that can use graphics textures to generate texturing result data for use when generating rendering output data to be generated by the graphics processing unit;
• and
• processing circuitry configured to associate respective sub-regions of a graphics texture to be used by the graphics processing unit to generate texturing result data with respective fade factor values that can be set by an application that is to use the texture;
• and
• wherein the graphics processing unit comprises processing circuitry configured to, when the graphics processing unit is to use a sub-region of a texture that has an associated fade factor value to generate texturing result data, control the contribution of texture data from the texture sub-region to the generated texturing result data in accordance with the fade factor value associated with the texture sub-region.