timfoleysama
11-29-2000, 12:16 PM
This is likely a stupid question, but I figured asking it here is the quickest way to get an answer. I basically just want another buffer so that I can render complex effects into it for procedural textures and such, without overwriting the contents of the frame buffer. I realize that its probably far better to do this kind of work between frames using the main buffer, but suppose that weren't possible...
Do most/any consumer cards support this feature? Is it *safe* to use?
i.e. would it be best to request an aux buffer (using up precious framebuffer memory) and use it in such cases or would it be better to do a kind of swap operation, copying out the contents of the framebuffer from a texture-sized area, rendering and copying the texture and then replacing the patch of framebuffer that was overwritten with its original contents?
Do most/any consumer cards support this feature? Is it *safe* to use?
i.e. would it be best to request an aux buffer (using up precious framebuffer memory) and use it in such cases or would it be better to do a kind of swap operation, copying out the contents of the framebuffer from a texture-sized area, rendering and copying the texture and then replacing the patch of framebuffer that was overwritten with its original contents?