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1<HTML>
2
3<TITLE>Performance Tips</TITLE>
4
5<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="mesa.css"></head>
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7<BODY>
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9<H1>Performance Tips</H1>
10
11<p>
12Performance tips for software rendering:
13</P>
14<ol>
15
16<li> Turn off smooth shading when you don't need it (glShadeModel)
17<li> Turn off depth buffering when you don't need it.
18<li> Turn off dithering when not needed.
19<li> Use double buffering as it's often faster than single buffering
20<li> Compile in the X Shared Memory extension option if it's supported
21      on your system by adding -DSHM to CFLAGS and -lXext to XLIBS for
22      your system in the Make-config file.
23<li> Recompile Mesa with more optimization if possible.
24<li> Try to maximize the amount of drawing done between glBegin/glEnd pairs.
25<li> Use the MESA_BACK_BUFFER variable to find best performance in double
26      buffered mode.  (X users only)
27<li> Optimized polygon rasterizers are employed when:
28         rendering into back buffer which is an XImage
29         RGB mode, not grayscale, not monochrome
30         depth buffering is GL_LESS, or disabled
31         flat or smooth shading
32         dithered or non-dithered
33         no other rasterization operations enabled (blending, stencil, etc)
34<li> Optimized line drawing is employed when:
35         rendering into back buffer which is an XImage
36         RGB mode, not grayscale, not monochrome
37         depth buffering is GL_LESS or disabled
38         flat shading
39         dithered or non-dithered
40         no other rasterization operations enabled (blending, stencil, etc)
41<li> Textured polygons are fastest when:
42         using a 3-component (RGB), 2-D texture
43         minification and magnification filters are GL_NEAREST
44         texture coordinate wrap modes for S and T are GL_REPEAT
45         GL_DECAL environment mode
46         glHint( GL_PERSPECTIVE_CORRECTION_HINT, GL_FASTEST )
47         depth buffering is GL_LESS or disabled
48<li> Lighting is fastest when:
49         Two-sided lighting is disabled
50         GL_LIGHT_MODEL_LOCAL_VIEWER is false
51         GL_COLOR_MATERIAL is disabled
52         No spot lights are used (all GL_SPOT_CUTOFFs are 180.0)
53         No local lights are used (all position W's are 0.0)
54         All material and light coefficients are >= zero
55<li> XFree86 users:  if you want to use 24-bit color try starting your
56      X server in 32-bit per pixel mode for better performance.  That is,
57      start your X server with
58         startx -- -bpp 32
59      instead of
60         startx -- -bpp 24
61<li> Try disabling dithering with the MESA_NO_DITHER environment variable.
62      If this env var is defined Mesa will disable dithering and the
63      command glEnable(GL_DITHER) will be ignored.
64</ol>
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67</BODY>
68</HTML>
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