What problem does double or triple buffering solve in modern games?
- by krokvskrok
I want to check if my understanding of the causes for using double (or triple) buffering is correct:
A monitor with 60Hz refresh's the monitor-display 60 times per second.
If the monitor refresh the monitor-display, he updates pixel for pixel and line for line.
The monitor requests the color values for the pixels from the video memory.
If I run now a game, then this game is constantly manipulating this video memory.
If this game don't use a buffer strategy (double buffering etc.) then the following problem can happen:
The monitor is now refreshing his monitor-display. At this moment the monitor had refreshed the first half monitor-display already. At the same time, the game had manipulated the video memory with new data. Now the monitor accesses for the second half monitor-display this new manipulated data from the video memory. The problems can be tearing or flickering.
Is my understanding of cases of using buffer strategy correct? Are there other reasons?
