Patent ID: 7002588

Claim:
A method for branching during graphics processing, comprising: performing a first operation on data; and in response to the first operation, branching to a second operation; wherein the first operation and the second operation are associated with instructions selected from a predetermined instruction set; wherein the branching to the second operation is performed based on a Boolean condition; wherein the branching to the second operation is performed if content of a predetermined register is true; wherein the branching involves a swizzle operation; wherein the first operation and the second operation are selected from a group consisting 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.