   Some basic PresentParameters...
  Hi all,I was reading throught MSDN on the PresentParameters structure. I've got a few question about it. I'm using C#/MDX (even if i dont think i would change anythings for the answers).First, the SwapEffect field allows Discard, Copy and Flip. Anyone had advices on this about speed efficency for Windowed and Fullscreen? I'm using Discard for now, they say "An application can use the Discard swap effect to avoid these overheads and to enable the display driver to choose the most efficient presentation technique for the swap chain."? If so, why making this field public to us?Second, the MultiSample field. Im wondering if this is for texture filtering (ie: bilinear, trilinear, aniso, ....). Since i doubt it for texturing filtering (if i remember, texture filtering is done throught SetRenderState) can someone tell me what this is used for?Thanks in advance all,Jonathan   
  Hi LowRad,First, the Discard flag would be most efficient of the different swap effect. Using the Discard flag is like telling DX "I don't care what the buffer contains after a Present". This, of course, makes the process much easier for the GPU drivers, since they can do whatever is most efficient at the time, without having to worry about the contents of the backbuffer after the present.The Copy and Swap flags are there for extra functionality. In some cases, someone might want to draw the same thing over and over, and only add to it every time. Using Copy would allow you to do this pretty efficiently, since you don't have to redraw the same things you did last frame. This has very specific use, but it can be useful in some cases. Swap would be useful if you had to draw even frames in one way, and odd frames another. Again, not extremely useful, but it's still there in case someone finds a use for it.Second, the Multisample field is a setting for Anti-aliasing, along with the multisample quality. If the GPU driver doesn't override the settings you choose, this is where you would set the AA level for your application.Hope this helps :).   ;  Thanks sirob for your answers, exactly what i was looking for...EDIT:Just one more question about the MultiSample & MultiSampleQuality?The MultiSample enum contains about the samething as what i can set in my driver for AA (except i dont go up to 16 ;) ).But what is MultiSampleQuality used for? Its an int!Thanks   ;  The MultiSampleQuality only seems to apply to the NonMaskable multisample type. Since all the latest games expose 2x, 4x etc. rather than NonMaskable quality, I guess this is some kind of legacy setting. A quick search confirms that NonMaskable is available on a GeForce2MX, so it certainly does seem to qualify for the legacy label [wink]   ;  Thanks remigius,I've search the installed MSDN on my computer, sorry didnt take the time to search google.Thanks,Jonathan   ;Quote:Original post by remigiusThe MultiSampleQuality only seems to apply to the NonMaskable multisample type. Since all the latest games expose 2x, 4x etc. rather than NonMaskable quality, I guess this is some kind of legacy setting. A quick search confirms that NonMaskable is available on a GeForce2MX, so it certainly does seem to qualify for the legacy label [wink]Both types (masked and non masked) are still valid and it is possible that even the masked variants have multiple levels of quality. The reason why most games (if the offer a setting) prefer the masked versions is that API doesn’t tell you what kind of AA is attached to the different quality levels of the non-masked version. I believe Microsoft had only a simple more-less-slider in mind but players prefer to get a name with the kind of AA to select. In general the non-maskable versions are introduced with D3D9. This make the mask able forms more “legacy” but there are still some special tricks that require a mask able buffer to work.   