The present invention provides an efficient state management system for a complex ASIC, and applications thereof. In an embodiment, a computer-based system executes state-dependent processes. The computer-based system includes a command processor (CP) and a plurality of processing blocks. The CP receives commands in a command stream and manages a global state responsive to global context events in the command stream. The plurality of processing blocks receive the commands in the command stream and manage respective block states responsive to block context events in the command stream. Each respective processing block executes a process on data in a data stream based on the global state and the block state of the respective processing block.