Warp 3D questions

[Wrangler]

A couple of questions the W3D docs are a bit vague on. Would welcome any insights:

1. In general, is Indirect mode faster or slower than locking the hardware, drawing the objects for the frame and then unlocking? Or are there rules of thumb for when one is faster?

2. Fast mode always seems to be mentioned in the same sentence as Indirect mode but presumably you don't have to use them together? Any insight why they are talked about together though?

Just for completeness, I'm talking about hardware rendering here.

Thanks

[Hedeon]

Don't forget that Indirect is no longer supported from 5 and up

[Cowcat]

1. What is faster or not depends on the context. If a particular "pure" W3D program sets indirect state and uses indirect functions, that could be fast if you don't ever use the non-indirect functions (besides those needed to flush the queue).

2. Presumably. Fast mode is a way to allow structure primitives queued (indirect functions) to be changed meanwhile other stuff happens. Old minigl has that flag disabled and enabling it does nothing (or who knows if it fixes or hurts some engines I do).

But anyways question 1 is by no means a simple answer.

[Wrangler]

Thanks guys