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Abstract

A method and system for compressing graphic data by dividing the data into segments is disclosed. The size of the divided segment is programmable. A frame buffer partitioned into a compressed frame buffer and an uncompressed frame buffer stores graphic data. Each segment of the graphic data is compressed by three different algorithms that encode the graphic data as a plurality of code-words. Each code-word for the segment is taken from the algorithm that can compress the largest number of pixels in the code-word. A header is used to indicate the number of code-words and the compression method used in each code-word. The total number of bytes obtained from the compression of a segment is compared to a pre-defined limit to determine if the compression of the segment is successful. The successfully compressed data of a segment are written to the compressed frame buffer. A compression status flag buffer is used to identify if a segment is compressed or not. A decompressor decompresses or passes the graphic data to a pixel stream for display according to the compress status flag.

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First Claim