Patent ID: 7250953

Claim:
A graphics processor, comprising: a graphics processor including a graphics pipeline comprising a chain of Arithmetic Logic Units (ALUs) for processing pixel packets, said graphics pipeline having a set of tap points associated with elements of said graphics pipeline wherein each pixel packet includes payload information identifying at least one pixel attribute to be processed and having associated sideband information identifying a sequence of at least one instruction to be executed on said pixel packet, wherein a sequence of arithmetic operations is performed on said pixel packets to execute a graphics processing function; and said graphics processor including a configurable test point selector to perform diagnostic monitoring on the behalf of a software host, said configurable test point selector adapted to monitor a subset of tap points selected by a software command issued by said software host; wherein said graphics processor is operative to receive diagnostic commands from said software host and collect statistical data for said subset of taps selected by said software host to reduce the amount of diagnostic data that must be transferred to said software host for diagnostic processing.