Apple patents display trick to swap image quality for speed
Apple describes a method for electronic displays to reduce lag by checking two separate memory buffers. The system picks the next piece of the image from whichever buffer has the higher quality version, ensuring smoother visuals.
In the filing’s own words
Systems, methods, and devices are provided to reduce latency in displaying image data on an electronic display. This may include instructing image processing circuitry to read a first tile of image data from a first framebuffer, determining whether the first framebuffer or a second framebuffer has a higher quality second tile after the first tile and, based on whether the first framebuffer or the second framebuffer has the higher quality second tile, instructing the image processing circuitry to read the second tile from the first framebuffer or the second framebuffer that has the higher quality second tile.
What exactly they claim (claim 1)
1. An article of manufacture comprising tangible, non-transitory, machine-readable media comprising instructions that, when executed by a data processing system, cause the data processing system to carry out operations comprising: instructing image processing circuitry to read a first tile of image data from a first framebuffer; determining whether the first framebuffer or a second framebuffer has a higher-quality second tile after the first tile; and based on whether the first framebuffer or the second framebuffer has the higher-quality second tile, instructing the image processing circuitry to read the second tile from the first framebuffer or the second framebuffer that has the higher-quality second tile.
Facts
- Company
- Apple (Apple Inc.)
- Official title
- Degraded Quality Image Buffer Fallback
- Publication number
- US20260289720A1
- Application number
- 19086118
- Filed
- Mar 20, 2025
- Published
- Sep 24, 2026
- Inventors
- 2
- Claims
- 23
Classified under
G06T 1/60 Physics & computingG06F 3/14 Physics & computingG06T 1/20 Physics & computingG06T 5/80 Physics & computingG06T 7/0002 Physics & computingG06T 9/00 Physics & computingMore from Apple in Chips & hardware
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Summaries are simplified from the filing’s own abstract and first claim. A patent filing is not a product announcement.
Patent data and drawings: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Nebula is not affiliated with or endorsed by the USPTO.