Tiled rendering is the process of subdividing (or tiling

Tiling

Tiling may refer to:* The physical act of laying tiles* The mathematics of tessellations* The compiler optimization of loop tiling* In computing, a tiling window manager, where windows do not overlap...

) a computer graphics image by a regular grid

Grid (spatial index)

In the context of a spatial index, a grid is a regular tessellation of a manifold or 2-D surface that divides it into a series of contiguous cells, which can then be assigned unique identifiers and used for spatial indexing purposes...

 in image space to exploit local spatial coherence in the scene and/or to facilitate the use of limited hardware rendering

3D rendering

3D rendering is the 3D computer graphics process of automatically converting 3D wire frame models into 2D images with 3D photorealistic effects on a computer.-Rendering methods:...

 resources later in the graphics pipeline

Graphics pipeline

In 3D computer graphics, the terms graphics pipeline or rendering pipeline most commonly refers to the current state of the art method of rasterization-based rendering as supported by commodity graphics hardware. The graphics pipeline typically accepts some representation of a three-dimensional...

. Tiling is also used to create nonlinear framebuffer

Framebuffer

A framebuffer is a video output device that drives a video display from a memory buffer containing a complete frame of data.The information in the memory buffer typically consists of color values for every pixel on the screen...

 to make adjacent pixels also adjacent in memory.

Major examples of this are:

• PowerVR
  PowerVR
  PowerVR is a division of Imagination Technologies that develops hardware and software for 2D and 3D rendering, and for video encoding, decoding, associated image processing and Direct X, OpenGL ES, OpenVG, and OpenCL acceleration....
  
   rendering architecture: The rasterizer consisted of a 32×32 tile into which polygon
  Polygon
  In geometry a polygon is a flat shape consisting of straight lines that are joined to form a closed chain orcircuit.A polygon is traditionally a plane figure that is bounded by a closed path, composed of a finite sequence of straight line segments...
  
  s were rasterized across the image across multiple pixel
  Pixel
  In digital imaging, a pixel, or pel, is a single point in a raster image, or the smallest addressable screen element in a display device; it is the smallest unit of picture that can be represented or controlled....
  
  s in parallel. On early PC
  Personal computer
  A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
  
   versions, tiling was performed in the display driver running on the CPU
  Central processing unit
  The central processing unit is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. The CPU plays a role somewhat analogous to the brain in the computer. The term has been in...
  
  . In the application of the Dreamcast console, tiling was performed by a piece of hardware. This facilitated deferred rendering—only the visible pixels were texture-mapped, saving shading
  Shading
  Shading refers to depicting depth perception in 3D models or illustrations by varying levels of darkness.-Drawing:Shading is a process used in drawing for depicting levels of darkness on paper by applying media more densely or with a darker shade for darker areas, and less densely or with a lighter...
  
   calculations and texture-bandwidth
  Bandwidth (computing)
  In computer networking and computer science, bandwidth, network bandwidth, data bandwidth, or digital bandwidth is a measure of available or consumed data communication resources expressed in bits/second or multiples of it .Note that in textbooks on wireless communications, modem data transmission,...
  
  .
• Xbox 360
  Xbox 360
  The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
  
  : the GPU contains an embedded 10 MiB
  MIB
  MIB may refer to any of several concepts:* Master of International Business, a postgraduate business degree* Melayu Islam Beraja, the adopted national philosophy of Brunei* Motion induced blindness, a visual illusion in peripheral vision...
  
   framebuffer
  Framebuffer
  A framebuffer is a video output device that drives a video display from a memory buffer containing a complete frame of data.The information in the memory buffer typically consists of color values for every pixel on the screen...
  
  ; this is not sufficient to hold the raster for an entire 1280×720 image with 4× anti-aliasing
  Anti-aliasing
  In digital signal processing, spatial anti-aliasing is the technique of minimizing the distortion artifacts known as aliasing when representing a high-resolution image at a lower resolution...
  
  , so a tiling solution is superimposed.
• Implementations of Reyes rendering
  Reyes rendering
  Reyes rendering is a computer software architecture used in 3D computer graphics to render photo-realistic images. It was developed in the mid-1980s by Loren Carpenter and Robert L. Cook at Lucasfilm's Computer Graphics Research Group, which is now Pixar. It was first used in 1982 to render images...
  
   often divide the image into "tile buckets".
• Pixel Planes 5 architecture (1991)
• Microsoft Talisman
  Microsoft Talisman
  Talisman was a Microsoft project to build a new 3D graphics architecture based on quickly compositing 2D "sub-images" onto the screen, an adaptation of tiled rendering. In theory, this approach would dramatically reduce the amount of memory bandwidth required for 3D games and thereby lead to...
  
   (1996)
• Dreamcast (1998)
• PSVita
• Intel Larrabee GPU (canceled)