   Geometry Instancing / Display Lists / VBOs
  Can someone summarize the difference between Geometry Instancing and display lists? (Or are display lists just the method of instancing geometry?)What about vertex buffer objects?   
  Display lists are a way of precompiling a list GPU of commands (e.g. set state, set texture, draw vertices, etc.), it then saves  them in a form that can be passed straight to the GPU without using as much CPU time as you would if you were calling  each command explictially your code.  Instancing is just the concept of have multiply "instances", or copies, of the same geometry at different locations in space.  Each instance can potentially have different state (e.g. transparency, bone matrices, etc.), but shares the same geometry.  Display lists provide a means to implement instancing.  Another way on modern GPUs is to use GPU instancing where the you have two vertex streams, one with your actual vertices, the other contains the LTM matrix (and any other state) for each instance.   ;  Consider being able to execute a display list with parameters -- that would be one way of doing geometry instancing.   ;  Ok, thanks guys.EDIT: Nevermind about VBOs. :)[Edited by - discman1028 on May 30, 2006 11:35:02 PM]