Patent ID: 7755634

Claim:
A method for branching during graphics processing, comprising: performing a first operation on data; in response to the first operation, branching to a second operation, utilizing a processor; and outputting a result of the graphics processing; wherein the first operation and the second operation are associated with instructions selected from a predetermined instruction set; wherein the first operation and the second operation include at least one of a branch operation, a call operation, a fraction operation, a no operation, a move operation, a multiply operation, an addition operation, a multiply and addition operation, a reciprocal operation, a reciprocal square root operation, a three component dot product operation, a four component dot product operation, a distance operation, a minimum operation, a maximum operation, an exponential operation, a logarithm operation, and a lighting operation; wherein at least one of the first operation and the second operation includes one of the three component dot product operation, the four component dot product operation, the no operation, the minimum operation and the maximum operation; wherein at least one of the first operation and the second operation includes the minimum operation, and the minimum operation determines a minimum associated with a plurality of data sources, and moves the minimum into a destination location; wherein the first operation and the second operation are each carried out utilizing a data structure; wherein the data structure includes a source location identifier indicating a location of the data, a source component identifier indicating a component of the location in which the data is located, a destination location identifier indicating a destination of the output result, and a destination component identifier indicating a component of the destination to which the result is output.