4 ms·

Is "page-flipping" basically double buffering or am I missing something?

• 0xcde4c3db 6y ago
  I hadn't heard the term in a while, but I believe page-flipping more specifically means that the buffer roles can be switched in hardware (e.g. by changing a "framebuffer start address" register in the CRTC or RAMDAC) instead of requiring a buffer to be copied (e.g. via a DMA or blitter operation). Both schemes are double-buffered in the sense that you're never actively rendering to the same buffer that's being scanned out, but page-flipping has significantly less overhead.
  • idoby 6y ago
    In all multiple-framebuffer capable hardware platforms I know of, there's a pointer to the FB involved (in the case you describe, an address-bearing register). Otherwise a copy is required into a hardcoded address or physical memory, and then you're not double-buffering anymore.
  • wtallis 6y ago
    When's the last time anyone produced a hardware platform where double-buffering required a full copy rather than just updating a pointer/register? PCs moved past that in the '90s at the latest, and I'd expect most other platforms that supported 32+ bit addressing on both the CPU and graphics processor were similarly capable of relocating the front buffer at will.