Patent ID: 8736626

Claim:
A graphics system connectable via an external bus to a computing system, the computing system including a system memory, said graphics system comprising: a) a video memory for storing data; b) a memory controller coupled to said video memory, said memory controller operative to control the flow of data to and from said video memory by receiving and handling requests to read from and write to the video memory; c) a graphics processor operative to process data received by said graphics system, data stored in said video memory and data stored in the system memory; and d) a copy engine including an encryption/decryption engine, the copy engine responsive to a copy instruction including a range of addresses included in the system memory to copy data from the range of addresses included in the system memory to said video memory, said copy engine performing said copy instruction by requesting the data from the system memory and transferring the data to said memory controller for writing to said video memory, said copy engine acting independently of both said graphics processor and said memory controller, said copy engine and being operative to: i) decrypt encrypted data read from the system memory over the external bus; and ii) transfer the decrypted data to said video memory via said memory controller, wherein said copy engine is responsive to a copy instruction including a range of addresses included in the video memory to copy data from the range of addresses included in the video memory to the system memory, said copy engine being operative to: a) encrypt unencrypted data requested from the video memory via said memory controller; and b) transfer the encrypted data to the system memory over the external bus.