A configurable filter module for providing shared filter resource between
an overlay engine and a texture mapping engine of a graphics system. The
configurable filter may comprise a plurality of linear blend units each of
which receives data input from one of the overlay engine and a mapping
engine cache, and generates a linear blend filter output respectively; and
a filter output multiplexer which receives data output from the linear
blend units and selects a proper byte ordering output, wherein the linear
blend units serve as an overlay interpolator filter to perform linear
blending of the data input from the overlay engine during a linear blend
mode, and serve as a texture bilinear filter to perform bilinear filtering
of the data input from the mapping engine cache during a bilinear
filtering mode.