From: Allen A. <ak...@po...> - 2008-05-14 23:34:56
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On Wed, May 14, 2008 at 03:48:47PM -0700, Keith Packard wrote: | Object mapping is really the least important part of the system; it | should only be necessary when your GPU is deficient, or your API so | broken as to require this inefficient mechanism. In the OpenGL case, object mapping wasn't originally a part of the API. It was added because people building hardware and apps for Intel-based PCs determined that it was worthwhile, and demanded it. This wasn't on my watch, so I can't give you the history in detail, but my recollection is that the primary uses were texture loading for games and video apps, and incremental changes to vertex arrays for games and rendering apps. So maybe the hardware has changed sufficiently that the old reasoning and performance measurements are no longer valid. It would still be good to know for sure that eliminating low-level support for the mechanism won't be drastically bad for the classes of apps that use it. Allen |