Patent ID: 8564612

Claim:
A pixel imaging method for a computer system, comprising: receiving at least first and second pixel information from one or more application backing stores; compositing the at least first and second pixel information with a graphics processing unit (GPU) by combining the at least first and second pixel information into a first assembly buffer as composited pixel information, the first assembly buffer having a first color depth of at least greater than 8-bits per color component, wherein the act of compositing comprises a graphical blending technique applied to the first and second pixel information and wherein the GPU comprises a processing unit configured to execute fragment programs on several pixels simultaneously; processing the composited pixel information in the first assembly buffer into a second assembly buffer as processed pixel information, the second assembly buffer having a second color depth, the second color depth being different from the first color depth; copying the processed pixel information from the second assembly buffer into a frame buffer of the computer system as output pixel information, the second color depth being equal to a third color depth of the frame buffer; and outputting the output pixel information in the frame buffer for display with the computer system.