   heightmaps question
  is it better to render a heightmap in strips or put it all into one large vertex array and render it all at once   
  "better" in what sense?Typically, you'll split a heightmap in some number of chunks. For example, a 1024x1024 heightmap could be split in 256 chunks, each of which were 64x64. You'd then only render the chunks that are within the viewing frustum, and probably cull towards the end with some fog (depending on viewing distance).In general, a regular grid will perform petter on a graphics card when using vertex cache sorted triangle lists, instead of using strips. With triangle strips, the best you can do is one triangle drawn per vertex transformed (and typically, it needs more verts than that, because of degenerates and start-up costs).With a triangle list, you can get one triangle drawn per 0.67 vertices transformed, thanks to the vertex cache, assuming that you sort your triangles in an optimal order.So, in general, I would use indexed triangle lists for almost all kinds of geometry. The only other primitive I'd use would be indexed line lists.   