Patent ID: 7385609

Claim:
A method for processing graphics data in a graphics pipeline, the method comprising: at a triangle setup stage of said graphics pipeline, receiving a unit of graphics data; at said triangle setup stage, selecting a processing mode based on a data type of said unit of graphics data and writing an output of the triangle setup stage to a triangle random access memory (RAM) for use by downstream stages of the graphics pipeline; wherein said triangle setup stage acts as a multi-function stage that adjusts its processing mode based on said data type with a slope calculation being performed for the data type being a standard data type such that the output is stored in a first format in said triangle RAM that includes a slope data field; the slope calculation being bypassed for the data type being a pass through data type with the output for the pass through data type being stored in said triangle RAM in a second format that does not include a slope data field; wherein said first format is a format having three fields that includes slope information and said second format is a format having a single field to triple the storage capacity in the triangle RAM for the pass through data type.