Abstract: The present invention provides a system and method for eliminating hidden surfaces in 3D graphics that improves rendering performance by decreasing the size of the data stored to or retrieved from the depth buffer when the distance from the camera to the pixel on the surface of the primitive is further than the threshold distance. The threshold distance from the camera is defined such that for such pixels the precision of a linear or quazi-linear depth buffer with a decreased data size is the same as or higher than the precision of a non-linear depth buffer with an original data size. The invention improves the usefulness of linear and quasi-linear depth buffers for 3D applications optimized for non-linear depth buffers. The present invention additionally affords a method for selecting the size of data to be read from the depth buffer before new depth values are computed for the same pixels.