Optimizing Mountains

I am programming textured mountains on which one can walk, and now I need to optimize them :

  1. Would backface culling help ? If yes, how to activate it ? (I didn’t manage to do it).

  2. How to use vertex arrays ? Is there any tutorial ?

  3. Would NURBS be faster ?

I need your help !

  1. Yes. glEnable(GL_CULL_FACE)

  2. Yes, particularly if combined with glDrawElements. Also consider using diaply lists. See http://nehe.gamedev.net/

  3. No.