Patent ID: 6940514

Claim:
An edge walker module in a rasterization pipeline for processing primitives comprising: an edge walker interface; two sets of data registers; an edge walker unit connected to the edge walker interface and the two sets of data registers; wherein the edge walker interface is operable to receive a first setup data set initializing a current primitive to be rasterized and to store the first setup data set in a first one of the two sets of registers; wherein the edge walker unit is operable to utilize the initialization data for the current primitive to generate and output a sequence of one or more output data sets; wherein the edge walker interface is further operable to receive a second setup data set initializing a next primitive to be rasterized and to store the second setup data set in a second one of the two sets of registers; and wherein at least a portion of the time spent by the edge walker interface to initialize the next primitive occurs during the time spent by the edge walker unit to generate and output the sequence of one or more output data sets for the current primitive.