Patent ID: 7889202

Claim:
A method for multi-buffering in a computer system with multiple graphics processing units (GPUs) for rendering images and displaying the same by flipping between two flip buffers, the method comprising: allocating one or more internal buffers for replacing contents of one of the two flip buffers with contents of one of the internal buffers at the end of a flip execution, wherein the internal buffers are additional buffers implemented in the GPUs in addition to the two flip buffers to provide more renderable buffers; rendering a first image by a first GPU to a back buffer of the two flip buffers; displaying the first image by flipping to the back buffer, after which a front buffer of the two flip buffers becomes a back buffer and the back buffer becomes a front buffer; shifting current back buffer and the internal buffers in a predetermined sequence; rendering a second image by a second GPU to the current back buffer, which has been replaced by one of the internal buffers; displaying the second image by flipping to the current back buffer, after which the front buffer and back buffer are exchanged; and shifting the current back buffer and the internal buffers again in the predetermined sequence, wherein the two flip buffers are shared by the first and second GPUs for displaying the rendered first and second images.