Clipping affects graphics performance

Is there an efficient way to use the clipping facility without seriously affecting the graphics refresh rate. When I do not have it turned on, the response that I get is excellent, but when I turn it on, the graphics become sluggish.

Many thanks

[pedrodx]

I might be wrong, but maybe if you restrict the clipping to the z area of interest, i. e. focus on the z-coordinates of the objects you want to be rendered and cut out the objects that you don't want to be rendered.

By the way, I guess that smaller clipping plane, more faster is rendered. Sorry my English....

[ZbuffeR]

Not all hardware support clipping planes, in this case it is done by the CPU so it is much slower. try with only one cplipping plane maybe.

How do I find out whether a graphics card supports clipping. I suppose the fact that my computer grinds down is indicative of the non-hardware clipping feature.

Many thanks

[ZbuffeR]

This sort of feature is typical of professional cards, maybe not the consumer/gamer oriented ?
ie, nvidia's Quadro has hardware clip planes :
http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.cfm?articleid=445&catid=2

Many thanks for your advice. I tried the same program on my desktop which has an FX-5200 graphics card and there the clipping works brilliantly. The machine that I had problem with was a laptop where obviously the graphics card is pretty much a bog standard graphics card for laptops.