the present invention is directed to a method and apparatus for reducing the frame buffer size in a 3d graphics system . according to an exemplary aspect of the present invention , sorting and limiting the polygons that get processed at a given time may reduce the size of the frame buffer requiered in a graphics system . this may allow the system to process only those polygons that fall in one section of the screen . as a result , the system may not need to double buffer the whole screen . in a preferred embodiment , the location of the screen that gets processed may be arbitrary but should be preferably chosen so it is easy to sort the polygons and time - manage the process as the system needs to know when to swap from one location to another .