Display lists

Hey dudes, i would like to know if is ALWAYS advisable (i.e is better) to use display lists instead of spitting code all way down? Or if it is only better when we use a great amount of a specific object? Thanks

No. God, no. There’s nothing that’s always advisable when it comes to OpenGL.

Small display lists will likely hurt performance - there’s definitely a point of diminishing returns. Depending on what you’re doing, give it a try and see whether it helps - but be aware that performance gains may only apply on your hardware. Other cards may perform worse - you never know.

FWIW, writing everything in immediate mode is certainly possible - no display lists, no vertex arrays, no VBOs. Depending on what you’re doing, it may still be fast enough for you - you only see the benefits of the batch commands with sufficiently complicated scenes, which most people’s OpenGL applications aren’t! :wink:

I’m just starting to deal with openGL…but thanks for the explanation :slight_smile: