Immediate mode rendering is a style for application programming interfaces of graphics libraries, in which client calls directly cause rendering of graphics objects to the display. It does not preclude the use of double-buffering. In contrast to retained mode, lists of objects to be rendered are not saved by the API library. Instead, the application must re-issue all drawing commands required to describe the entire scene each time a new frame is required, regardless of actual changes. This method provides the maximum amount of control and flexibility to the application program.
Although drawing commands have to be re-issued for each new frame, modern systems using this method are generally able to avoid the unnecessary duplication of more memory-intensive display data by referring to that unchanging data in the relatively short drawing commands.
Famous quotes containing the word mode:
“The character of the logger’s admiration is betrayed by his very mode of expressing it.... He admires the log, the carcass or corpse, more than the tree.... What right have you to celebrate the virtues of the man you murdered?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)