Triple Buffering Question

[OrbitzXT]

I never really knew the numbers behind Triple Buffering, if some smart person would fill me in. As I understand it, when you have V-Sync on, if your GPU can't maintain 60 FPS and you don't have Triple Buffering on you'll drop down to 30 or so FPS. I get that part, but what exactly does Triple Buffering do? When you drop below 60FPS with both options on, are you able to have say 58 FPS? Or is there another number that Triple Buffering drops it down to, like how V-Sync without the buffer would bring it down to 30?

 

[cadaveca]

LCDs don't need to change every pixel. They can just change the ones that need it...

But, this makes for a flickering image.

Double and triple buffering refers to the stored FULL FRAMES of data, that if the frame is not complete, the output device can poll the buffer data to make up for the missing pixels. Double is two frames, triple is three, obviously. This allows the display to refresh teh full frame of data, rather than just the changed pixels.

So, triple buffering allows for the gpu to fill the framebuffer with only the changed pixels, and it can poll the buffer for the remaining ones, meaning the gpu has less work to do. Three buffers means there's more data "pre-rendered", and this allows for less of a performance drop using v-sync.


Sry if that is a bit confusing...