Patent ID: 7487516

Claim:
A method of utilizing surface data produced by a first graphics application by a second graphics application, wherein a first application programming interface used by the first graphics application is incompatible with a second application programming interface used by the second graphics application, the method comprising: storing the surface data in a first portion of memory; requesting driver level information from the second graphics application; storing the surface data produced by the first graphics application in a second portion of memory specified by the driver level information, wherein the driver level information includes a unique identifier (ID) and a format description, the unique ID identifying a region in the memory storing the surface data and required by the second graphics application to access the stored surface data, and the format description determining how to convert the surface data from a format compatible with the first graphics application to a format compatible with the second graphics application; and moving the data from the first portion of memory to the second portion of the memory after reading the format and the unique ID.