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Brian Paul352e0d02003-09-02 16:58:14 +00001<HTML>
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3<TITLE>PBuffer Rendering</TITLE>
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7<H1>PBuffer Rendering</H1>
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9<p>
10Basically, FBconfigs and PBuffers allow you to do off-screen rendering
11with OpenGL. The OSMesa interface does basically the same thing, but
12fbconfigs and pbuffers are supported by more vendors.
13</p>
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15<p>
16PBuffers are getting more use nowadays, though they've actually been
17around for a long time on IRIX systems and other workstations.
18</p>
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20<p>
21The
22<a href="http://oss.sgi.com/projects/ogl-sample/registry/SGIX/fbconfig.txt"
23target="_parent">GL_SGIX_fbconfig</a>
24and
25<a href="http://oss.sgi.com/projects/ogl-sample/registry/SGIX/pbuffer.txt"
26target="_parent">
27GL_SGIX_pbuffer</a> extensions describe the functionality.
28More recently, these extensions have been promoted to ARB extensions (on
29Windows at least).
30</p>
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32<p>
33The Mesa/progs/xdemos/ directory has some useful code for working
34with pbuffers:
35</p>
36
37<ul>
38<li><b>pbinfo.c</b> - like glxinfo, it prints a list of available
39 fbconfigs and whether each supports pbuffers.
40<li><b>pbutil.c</b> - a few utility functions for dealing with
41 fbconfigs and pbuffers.
42<li><b>pbdemo.c</b> - a demonstration of off-screen rendering with pbuffers.
43</ul>
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45<p>
46Mesa 4.1 and later support GL_SGIX_fbconfig and GL_SGIX_pbuffer (software
47rendering only).
48</p>
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