Balancing Polygon Size and Pixel Operations

Balancing Polygon Size and Pixel Operations

The pipeline is generally optimized for polygons that are 10 pixels on a side. However, you may need to work with polygons larger or smaller than that depending on the other operations going on in the pipeline:

If the polygons are too large for the fill-rate to keep up with the rest of the pipeline, the application is fill-rate limited. Smaller polygons balance the pipeline and increase the polygon rate.
If the polygons are too small for the rest of the pipeline to keep up with filling, then the application is transform limited. Larger and fewer polygons, or fewer vertices, balance the pipeline and increase the fill rate.

Use the simplest possible fill algorithms for drawing very large polygons such as backgrounds.