1. A graphics processing unit, comprising: a graphics pipeline; a front-end acting as an interface to map a class of commands received from a software driver to a series of instructions for said graphics pipeline, said class of commands having a corresponding abstract state machine representation that includes a set of state variables; validation logic associated with said front-end to check the validity of input commands from said software driver; a reduced memory space shadow memory coupled to said validation logic, said reduced memory space shadow memory storing a representation of state information for performing validations of said class of commands that is smaller in size than a full version of said set of state variables; said validation logic utilizing said reduced memory space shadow memory as a source of state information for performing validation.