Patent ID: 8319781

Claim:
A system for rendering images comprising: A. one or more client digital data processors, B. a server digital data processor in communications coupling with the one or more client digital data processors, the server digital data processor comprising one or more graphics processing units, C. a render server, executing on the server digital data processor and in communications coupling with the graphics processing units, the render server responding to a render request from a said client digital data processor by issuing one or more render commands to the one or graphics processing units, D. the render server responding to render requests from a plurality of said client digital data processors by issuing interleaved render commands to the one or more graphics processing units so that commands corresponding to different respective render requests are processed by the one or more graphics processing units in an alternating fashion, E. the render server breaking down one or more render requests received from the one or more client digital data processors into multiple smaller render requests each requiring less compute time and/or less graphics resources than the render request from which it was broken down in response to determining that graphics resources required for processing said one or more render requests exceed graphics resources associated with a said graphics processing unit.