Abstract: A method and apparatus dealing with optimizing the arbitration between clients requesting data. In particular, a set of rules determining which client request will provide an optimized subsequent memory access is implemented. The highest rule recognizes a client in urgent need of data, generally because it has not been services by the arbiter. The next highest-ranking rules would recognize data accesses of the same operation, such as read or write, and to the same page of memory, or requests to a different bank of memory. The next highest ranking rules would be for data accesses on the same page currently being accessed, but for a different operation, and for a different operation and to a different bank. Finally, any other client requests to a different page on the same bank/ would have the lowest priority. Such a request optimizes bandwidth of the memory bus.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for storing sequential data words associated with a block of data in a non-linear manner within the data block is taught such that any row or column associated with the data block may be accessed using a burst access. A row, or column of data accessed by a burst frees up instruction bandwidth of a video controller. In particular, it is assured that each row and column of data associated with the data block has at least one sequential pair of data words associated with it. By assuring at least one sequential pair of data words, it is possible to issue a burst request for a minimum of two words of data with each row access, or column access of the video controller.