I''m developing a triangle list class for my applications (it is in charge of vertex and index buffer allocation). The reason for this is that I wanted a class that would auto-draw when its memory became full. It seems to be working like a charm, but I noticed something VERY strange.... My app is currently drawing quads, (2 triangles), using triangle lists. I''m always drawing 4 vertices, and 6 indices to draw my quads (not the most efficient, but good enough for now). I figured with the flexibility of my triangle list class, I could enlarge the size of the buffer to suit the graphics card, and my app code would not change because the class auto-draws itself when the memory is full (of course, I have to force a draw-dump at the end to flush the buffers). Using SOFTARE vertex processing (I have a GeForce 2 MX), I was getting about 55 fps using 128 vertices and 128 indexes max in my class (it would auto-draw if more were requested, then start the next 128 again). When I switched to 1024 I got about 51 fps. When I switched to 4096 I got about 40 fps. What gives? This is not a huge vertex buffer, and I thought directX got faster if I had to call fewer lock/unlocks and less calls into DrawPrimitive? Any thoughts? I''m stumpted. If requested by email (greg@wadesoft.com) I will email you the class, and a quick usage example. It''s quite simple really.

It does seem very strange to me. I took my triangle list class (the one that manages the vertex and index buffers) out of my project, and created a simple D3D8 test application that uses is to draw 8000 random triangles per frame.

Anyhow, I've posted my source and 2 compiled versions, one with a 64 vertex buffer, and one with a 1024 vertex buffer. I should have made the large one larger. In win2k with debug version if DX, the 1024 version was a fair bit slower. However in win98 retail version of DX, they were about the same.

If you could try them out, and perhaps have a quick look at the simple source, I would appreciate it. I don't think I'm doing anything wrong at all. It's really very strange to me.

Thanks,

Greg.

http://www.wadesoft.com/files/triangletest.zip



Edited by - malachii on June 24, 2001 6:20:28 PM

Feel free to take the triangle list class for your own project. It is nice because you can set any number of vertices to draw with. Perhaps you could get a little more performance from your application by using smaller vertex buffers?