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Next: 18.5.4 Balancing Polygon Size Up: 18.5 Rendering Geometry Efficiently Previous: 18.5.2 Using Vertex Arrays

18.5.3 Using Display Lists

You can often improve performance by storing frequently used commands in a display list. If you plan to redraw the same geometry multiple times, or if you have a set of state changes that need to be applied multiple times, consider using display lists. Display lists allow you to define the geometry and/or state changes once and execute them multiple times. Some graphics hardware may store display lists in dedicated memory or may store the data in an optimized form for rendering.

The biggest drawback of using display lists is data expansion. The display list contains an entire copy of all your data plus additional data for each command and for each list. As a result, tuning for display lists focuses mainly on reducing storage requirements. Performance improves if the data that is being traversed fits in the cache. Follow these rules to optimize display lists:


next up previous contents
Next: 18.5.4 Balancing Polygon Size Up: 18.5 Rendering Geometry Efficiently Previous: 18.5.2 Using Vertex Arrays
David Blythe
1999-08-06