GL_TRINAGLES vs GL_TRIANGLE_STRIP

I wonder if there is some performance reason using one of these primitives instead of the other. Or is it just more comfortable using strips?

Thank You

Hi,

The reason why one should use strips (and fans) instead of other primitives is that each prim decl take some init time, I’m not talking about the vertex/tex/normal decl but the primitive type itself.

So suppose, for example, we want to display a 100 faces mesh. With GL_TRIANGLES, we have 100 prims init, with GL_TRIANGLE_STRIP we have only one prim !!

Needless to say that kind of prim type you’d better use :slight_smile:
This is important since there is a relation between the number of prims you declare and the number of vertices(texcoords/normals) you can actually send to the GPU : the more you declare prims the less you can send vertices…

Make some tests.

Can someone tell me if i’m wrong ??

Although it is true that a pair of glBegin/glEnd takes some time, there is another advantage of Strips over normal Triangles.

Let’s say you need to draw a strip that contains 10 triangles. If you use GL_TRIANGLES, you will call 30 times glVertex (10 triangles * 3 vertices). If you use GL_TRIANGLE_STRIP, you will call it only 12 times (3 times for the first triangle and then only 1 time for each of the other triangles !).

As you see, you save a lot of time using strips !!!

Now the thing is that you need to be able to find these strips when you are given only a set of unorganized triangles ! But that’s another problem…

As a hint, I have an ASE file that shows a mini-submarine (found on 3D cafe I think…).
If I don’t use strips, the model runs at 13FPS. When stripping the model, it runs at 45FPS !!!

You should use strips whenever you can !

Regards.

Eric

[This message has been edited by Eric (edited 12-14-2000).]

Thank You both …My thought was that You never know, what the driver/ the card will do with strips. Maybe they are converted to seperate triangles before reaching the GPU. But if You get better fps - ok! That’s it

Kai!