OpenGL PBO for texture upload, can't understand one thing
Okay , I read everything about PBO here : http://www.opengl.org/wiki/Pixel_Buffer_Object and there http://www.songho.ca/opengl/gl_pbo.html , but I still have a question and I don't know if I'll get any benefit out of a PBO in my case :
I'm doing video-streaming,currently I have a function copying my data buffers to 3 different textures, and then I'm doing some maths in a fragment shader and I display the texture.
I thought PBO could increase the upload time CPU -> GPU, but here it is, let's say we have this example here taken from the second link above.
glBindBufferARB(GL_PIXEL_UNPACK_BUFFER_ARB, pboIds[nextIndex]);
// map the buffer object into client's memory
// Note that glMapBufferARB() causes sync issue.
// If GPU is working with this buffer, glMapBufferARB() will wait(stall)
// for GPU to finish its job. To avoid waiting (stall), you can call
// first glBufferDataARB() with NULL pointer before glMapBufferARB().
// If you do that, the previous data in PBO will be discarded and
// glMapBufferARB() returns a new allocated pointer immediately
// even if GPU is still working with the previous data.
glBufferDataARB(GL_PIXEL_UNPACK_BUFFER_ARB, DATA_SIZE, 0, GL_STREAM_DRAW_ARB);
GLubyte* ptr = (GLubyte*)glMapBufferARB(GL_PIXEL_UNPACK_BUFFER_ARB, GL_WRITE_ONLY_ARB);
if(ptr)
{
// update data directly on the mapped buffer
updatePixels(ptr, DATA_SIZE);
glUnmapBufferARB(GL_PIXEL_UNPACK_BUFFER_ARB); // release pointer to mapping buffer
}
// measure the time modifying the mapped buffer
t1.stop();
updateTime = t1.getElapsedTimeInMilliSec();
///////////////////////////////////////////////////
// it is good idea to release PBOs with ID 0 after use.
// Once bound with 0, all pixel operations behave normal ways.
glBindBufferARB(GL_PIXEL_UNPACK_BUFFER_ARB, 0);
Well, whatever is the behavior of the updatePixels function , it is still using CPU cycles to copy the data to the mapped buffer isn't it?
So let's say I wanted to use PBO in such a manner, that is, to update my frame pixels to the PBO in a function , and then in the display function to call glTexSubImage2D (which should return immediately)... Would I see any speed-up in term of performance? I can't see why it would be faster... okay we're not waiting anymore during the glTex* call, but we're waiting during the function that uploads the frame to the PBO, aren't we?
Could someone clear that out for me please?
Thanks
The point about Buffer Objects is, that they can be use asynchronously. You can map a BO and then have some other part of the program update it (think threads, think asynchronous IO) while you can keep issuing OpenGL commands. A typical usage scenario with triple buffered PBOs may look like this:
wait_for_video_frame_load_complete(buffer[k-2])
glUnmapBuffer buffer[k-2]
glTexSubImage2D from buffer[k-2]
buffer[k] = glMapBuffer
start_load_next_video_frame(buffer[k]);
draw_texture
SwapBuffers
This allows your program to do usefull work and even upload data to OpenGL while its also used for rendering
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