GPU Gems 2: Programming Techniques for High-Performance Graphics and General-Purpose Computation

Chapter 4. Segment Buffering

Jon Olick2015

As graphical requirements evolve to include more polygons, more clutter, and better lighting to create more realistic-looking scenes, we are forced to produce more art to meet those requirements. One technique that helps to conserve development time is an instancing approach. For example, a single chair is modeled and placed all around the game world (see Figure 4-1). Instancing helps immensely to shrink development time. It is, however, all too common for modern games to become limited by the number of draw calls (Wloka 2003). If each instance used in a scene leads to one more batch, it may not be possible to realize the benefits of instancing: batches become the bottleneck. Segment buffering is a technique ...