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IOSurface
An Apple mechanism for sharing a chunk of graphics memory between processes and the GPU without copying it.
Moving image data between apps, the window system, and the GPU is expensive if you copy it each time. IOSurface is Apple's shared buffer that multiple processes and the GPU can all reference at once, enabling zero-copy rendering pipelines. In microZeus it backs an NSView on macOS so rendered output lands on screen efficiently.
See also
- instancingDrawing many copies of the same shape in a single GPU command instead of one command per copy.
- KhronosThe industry consortium that writes open graphics and compute standards like Vulkan.