Method and apparatus for deferred texture validation on a multi-tasking computer

1. Field of the Invention A method of avoiding processor state transitions while rendering frames includes forming a command data buffer and a data structure in response to drawing commands received from a graphics application. The command data buffer includes a list of primitives. The data structure identifies a texture and where in the command data buffer (offset) the texture should be referenced. Multiple texture changes can be accumulated at user level before making a ring transition to kernel mode to process the command data buffer. After the command data buffer and data structure are formed, kernel mode is entered so that a graphics driver can communicate the command data buffer to graphics hardware. While in kernel mode offsets stored in the data structure cause the driver to verify that the texture is present in graphics memory. If not present, the driver causes the texture to be loaded before continuing to communicate the primitives. Thus, multiple textures can be loaded the kernel session.