Patent ID: 7456846

Claim:
An apparatus for anti-aliasing a computer-generated object in a graphics pipeline configured to execute instructions of an applications program to generate geometry data representing geometries, said apparatus comprising: a pipeline front end unit configured to at least determine coverage of said geometries over coverage sample positions; a subpixel shifter configured to shift shading sample positions relative to a frame of reference that includes said geometries and said coverage sample positions such that there is no relative translation of said geometries with respect to said coverage sample positions; and a texture unit configured to determine shading at each of said subsets of shading sample positions, wherein said subpixel shifter is configured to shift each of said shading sample positions to a respective coverage sample position in a pixel for anti-aliasing said computer-generated object; and wherein said subpixel shifter aligns said shading sample positions with said coverage samples to produce symmetrical arrangements of said shading sample positions over groupings of pixels, thereby reducing mismatched values of level of detail (“LOD”) that otherwise would introduce LOD artifacts.