Full Table of Contents

Contents

About This Guide

What This Guide Contains

What You Should Know Before Reading This Guide

Background Reading

Books Available in Your Technical Bookstore

Information Available Online

Conventions Used in This Guide

Typographical Conventions

Function Naming Conventions

1. - Using OpenGL in a Windows Environment

Introduction to OpenGL on Windows

Architectural Overview of Windows and OpenGL

OpenGL and Windows Terminology

Using OpenGL on Windows: A Simple Example

Simple Windows Example Program

Setting Up and Creating the GDI Window

Setting Up the Window for OpenGL Rendering

Creating and Setting Up the Device Context

Creating and Setting Up a Rendering Context and Making It Current

Drawing with OpenGL Commands

Releasing the Device Context and Rendering Context

2. - New Features in OpenGL 1.1

New Functionality for Working With Textures

Improving Performance With Predefined Texture Formats

New Ways of Using Texture Environments

Testing Whether Textures Fit: The Texture Proxy Mechanism

Improving Performance With Texture Objects

How Texture Objects Work

Using Texture Objects

Texture Object Names

Editing and Querying Texture Objects

Texture Priorities and Residency

Default Textures

Updating Textures Quickly With Subtextures

Using Subtextures

Using Null Images With Subtextures

Loading Textures From the Framebuffer

Copying Texture Images

New and Extended Functions

Polygon Offset Functionality

Using Polygon Offset Functionality

Polygon Offset Example Program

New Functions

OpenGL 1.1 Vertex Arrays

Specifying Vertex Arrays

Enabling and Disabling Individual Arrays

Transferring Individual Array Elements

Combining Array Elements From Different Arrays

Rendering Primitives Constructed From a Mesh of Vertices

Using Interleaved Arrays

OpenGL 1.1 and the Vertex Array Extension

New Functions

3. - Extensions for OpenGL on Windows

Determining Extension Availability

Extension Suffix Overview

How to Check for OpenGL Extension Availability

Example Program: Checking for Extension Availability

The Compiled Vertex Arrays Extension

Compiled Vertex Array Extension Overview

Using Compiled Vertex Arrays

New Functions

The Object Space Vertex Culling Extension

How Vertex Space Culling Works

How to Use Vertex Culling

Vertex Culling Basics

Specifying the Culling Eye Position

New Functions

The Paletted Texture Extension

Using the Paletted Texture Extension

The BGRA Extension

The Index Texture Extension

The Index Material Extension

The Index Function Extension

Using the Index Function Extension

The Index Array Format Extension

4. - Tuning Your OpenGL Application

About Pipeline Tuning

Three-Stage Model of the Graphics Pipeline

Finding Bottlenecks in Your Application

Factors Influencing Performance

Tuning the Geometry Subsystem

Using Peak-Performance Primitives

Using Vertex Arrays

Using Drawing Modes Appropriately

Using Fast Drawing Modes

Using Expensive Modes Efficiently

Optimizing Lighting Performance

Advanced Geometry-Limited Tuning Techniques

Tuning the Raster Subsystem

Using Backface or Frontface Removal

Using Depth Buffering Efficiently

Other Considerations for Raster Subsystem Tuning

Balancing Polygon Size and Pixel Operations

Clearing the Color and Depth Buffers Simultaneously

Tuning the Imaging Pipeline

Drawing Pixels Fast

Tuning Animation

Factors Contributing to Animation Speed

Optimizing Frame Rate Performance

Taking Timing Measurements

Benchmarking Basics

Achieving Accurate Timing Measurements

Achieving Accurate Benchmarking Results

Performance Hints for Silicon Graphics' Implementation of OpenGL on Windows

A. - Code Example for Index Texture Extension

Index