Compression metadata value induced read and write operation conservation

Abstract

In disclosed embodiments, compression circuitry may compress data blocks and compressed write data blocks and corresponding compression metadata to a certain level in a cache/memory hierarchy. In some embodiments, the compression circuitry is configured to detect a pre-determined set of data values in a block of data to be compressed. In response, the compression circuitry may write a special metadata value for the data block to data storage circuitry to indicate compression of the data block, without writing a compressed version of the data block to the data storage circuitry. This may advantageously improve performance and reduce power consumption for data blocks with certain data values (e.g., having uniform pixel/texel values).