Patent ID: 8081184

Claim:
A method of assembling pixel shader program threads for execution, comprising: receiving a first pixel position associated with a first set of pixels that is included within a first primitive; storing the first pixel position in a first subsection of a pixel shader program thread buffer; storing a copy of a first primitive pointer in the first subsection, wherein the first primitive pointer is extracted from a primitive pointer buffer and references a primitive parameter value for generating at least a portion of the first set of pixels and at least a portion of a second set of pixels; storing, in the first subsection, an additional primitive parameter value that is constant within the first set of pixels; storing a coverage mask in the first subsection to determine the portion of the first set of pixels to be generated using the primitive parameter value; receiving a second pixel position associated with the second set of pixels; determining that the second set of pixels is included within the first primitive and storing the second pixel position in the second subsection of the pixel shader program thread buffer; and storing a second copy of the first primitive pointer in the second subsection, wherein the primitive parameter value is referenced by both the copy of the first primitive pointer in the first subsection and the second copy of the first primitive pointer in the second subsection.