Starbase Graphics Performance

Optimized vs. Normal 3D Performance

Performance Optimized For:

Factors Affecting Performance:

Rendering

Conditions

• Best: up to 8 directional light sources, plus

A total of more than 8 directional and

ambient

 

positional light sources cause a noticeable

• Good: a mixture of up to 8 directional and

performance degradation

positional light sources, plus ambient

Picking

• Directional eyepoint set with view_point

Any of the following ways of heavily

• Back face culling off, or back face culling

 

interleaving changes:

on with supplied geometric normals

 

o Frequent attribute changes (e.g.,

• View clipping on

 

frequent changes of line color)

• Isotropic modeling matrix (angle-

 

relative to the number of primitives

preserving)

 

being drawn

shade_mode set to CMAP_FULL

 

o Frequent changes of the type of

 

 

primitive (e.g., switching between

 

 

polygons with polylines at a high

 

 

frequency)

 

 

o Frequent changes of vertex format

 

 

(i.e., the data being supplied with

 

 

each vertex)

 

 

o Frequent changes of modal state,

 

 

such as:

 

 

Double-buffering

 

 

Z-buffering

 

 

Shade mode

 

 

Light sources enabled

 

 

Depth cueing state

 

 

Texture mapping state

 

 

o Frequent switching between two or

 

 

more file descriptors

 

 

o Frequent mixing of Xlib and

 

 

Starbase calls

 

• Redundant or unnecessary setup (e.g.

 

 

setting attributes that are not relevant to the

 

primitives being drawn)

 

Deformation on

 

Model clipping on

 

• HLHSR in software via PowerShade (on

 

 

unaccelerated graphics devices)

Page 112

Graphics Administration Guide for HP-UX 10.20