Apparatus and systems utilizing multiple
shader engines where each
shader engine comprises multiple rows of
shader engine filters combined with level one and level two cache systems. Each unified shader engine filter comprises a shader
pipe array, and a
texture mapping unit with access to a level one cache
system and a level two cache. The shader
pipe array accepts texture requests for a specified pixel from a resource and performs associated rendering calculations, outputting
texel data. The
texture mapping unit retrieves
texel data stored in a level one cache
system, with the ability to read and write to and from a level two cache
system, and through formatting and bilinear filtering interpolations generates a formatted bilinear result based on the specific pixel's neighboring texels. Utilizing multiple rows of shader engine filters within a shader engine allows for the
parallel processing of multiple simultaneous resource requests. Utilizing multiple shader engines allows for greater
processing through the use of multiple simultaneous
processing. A method utilizing multiple shader engines to perform
texture mapping is also presented.