Patent ID: 7948495

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of storing texture state provided by a graphics applications programming interface (API), comprising: receiving, at a texture state setup unit, texture state that includes texture map-specific characteristics and texture processing attributes from a graphics API; determining whether the texture state is stored in a unified state data structure that does not separately store the texture map-specific characteristics and the texture processing attributes; storing a header pool index associated with a header state data structure including a first portion of the texture state in a header slot within a mapping table stored in memory, wherein the first portion of the texture state corresponds to the texture map-specific characteristics; storing a sampler pool index associated with a sampler state data structure including a second portion of the texture state in a sampler slot within the mapping table, wherein the second portion of the texture state corresponds to the texture processing attributes, and wherein the sampler pool index is equal to the header pool index when the texture state is stored in the unified state data structure; updating a binding table stored in the memory to associate the header slot with the header state data structure; and updating the binding table to associate the sampler slot with the sampler state data structure only when the texture state is not stored in the unified state data structure.