CONSERVAZIONE DI MEMORIA DI STAMPANTE SULLA PAGINA DI COMPOSIZIONE INRISPOSTA A RETROAZIONE DI PIPE DI PAGINA

An imaging device and method provide memory management tasks on data of a page being composed in response to feedback generated by memory management tasks that are performed on pages in the page pipe that are waiting to be imaged. The feedback is throttled relative to memory management tasks that occur in the pipe. Advantageously, the memory management tasks are performed on the page being composed without waiting for an already composed page to finish imaging. Accordingly, page throughput of a multi-page print job is improved. The memory management tasks include compressing, relocating, and/or compressing and relocating data. Page data on which the memory management tasks are performed include raster patches, fonts, patterns, video bands, monster bands and vector bands. Atomic operations and/or a critical section locking mechanism provide collision avoidance as between the memory management tasks performed on data in the pipe and a video imaging task.