Techniques for operating electronic paper displays

Techniques for operating electronic paper displays of respective electronic devices are described. One set of techniques described below enhances user experience by utilizing multiple different waveform and/or display-update modes when rendering content on these displays. Another set of techniques are able to render lines on electronic paper displays having variable and arbitrary darkness, despite the restricted color depth inherent in these displays. In addition, this disclosure describes techniques for utilizing supersampling to select which shades to render on an electronic paper display of an electronic device. In still other implementations, the techniques described herein allocate a predefined frame rate of an electronic paper display between multiple different application components requesting to update the display, resulting smooth animation and relatively high-frame updates.