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<title>Performance Tips</title>
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<h1>Performance Tips</h1>
<p>
Performance tips for software rendering:
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<ol>
<li> Turn off smooth shading when you don't need it (glShadeModel)
<li> Turn off depth buffering when you don't need it.
<li> Turn off dithering when not needed.
<li> Use double buffering as it's often faster than single buffering
<li> Compile in the X Shared Memory extension option if it's supported
on your system by adding -DSHM to CFLAGS and -lXext to XLIBS for
your system in the Make-config file.
<li> Recompile Mesa with more optimization if possible.
<li> Try to maximize the amount of drawing done between glBegin/glEnd pairs.
<li> Use the MESA_BACK_BUFFER variable to find best performance in double
buffered mode. (X users only)
<li> Optimized polygon rasterizers are employed when:
rendering into back buffer which is an XImage
RGB mode, not grayscale, not monochrome
depth buffering is GL_LESS, or disabled
flat or smooth shading
dithered or non-dithered
no other rasterization operations enabled (blending, stencil, etc)
<li> Optimized line drawing is employed when:
rendering into back buffer which is an XImage
RGB mode, not grayscale, not monochrome
depth buffering is GL_LESS or disabled
flat shading
dithered or non-dithered
no other rasterization operations enabled (blending, stencil, etc)
<li> Textured polygons are fastest when:
using a 3-component (RGB), 2-D texture
minification and magnification filters are GL_NEAREST
texture coordinate wrap modes for S and T are GL_REPEAT
GL_DECAL environment mode
glHint( GL_PERSPECTIVE_CORRECTION_HINT, GL_FASTEST )
depth buffering is GL_LESS or disabled
<li> Lighting is fastest when:
Two-sided lighting is disabled
GL_LIGHT_MODEL_LOCAL_VIEWER is false
GL_COLOR_MATERIAL is disabled
No spot lights are used (all GL_SPOT_CUTOFFs are 180.0)
No local lights are used (all position W's are 0.0)
All material and light coefficients are >= zero
<li> XFree86 users: if you want to use 24-bit color try starting your
X server in 32-bit per pixel mode for better performance. That is,
start your X server with
startx -- -bpp 32
instead of
startx -- -bpp 24
<li> Try disabling dithering with the MESA_NO_DITHER environment variable.
If this env var is defined Mesa will disable dithering and the
command glEnable(GL_DITHER) will be ignored.
</ol>
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