CODEWITHSUNDEEP
direct2d
finnsson
finnsson

Reputation: 4067

Store resource in Direct2D on GPU

Is there some way to store a "scene" in Direct2D on the GPU?

I'm looking for something like ID2D1Mesh (i.e. storing the resource in vector format, not as a bitmap) but where I can configure if the mesh/scene/resource should be rendered with anti-aliasing or not.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 774

Answers (3)

zhuman - MSFT
zhuman - MSFT

Reputation: 1038

In Windows 8.1, Direct2D introduced geometry realizations, which lets you store a tessellated version of the geometry and later render it back with or without anti-aliasing, just like you asked. These are highly recommended over the use of meshes. Command lists, while convenient, don't have the same caching abilities as creating and storing the geometry realizations yourself.

Upvotes: 1

Kenny Kerr
Kenny Kerr

Reputation: 3115

Rick is correct in that you can apply antialiasing at two different levels. Either through Direct2D or through Direct3D. You can do both but that’s pointless and would only waste resources and lead to poor results. Direct2D antialiasing is suitable if you want per-primitive geometry-aware antialiasing. Direct3D antialiasing is useful if you want to sacrifice a bit of quality for better overall performance in some scenarios.

The Direct2D 1.1 command list literally stores/records a list of drawing commands that can be played back against different targets. This may be what you’re after as it’s not rasterized. Conceptually it’s like storing a vector image in device memory. Command lists are somewhat limited in that you cannot modify the command list once created and resources being drawn may also not be changed, but it’s still quite handy nonetheless.

Upvotes: 2

Rick Brewster
Rick Brewster

Reputation: 3504

There is a way to get antialiasing with ID2D1Mesh, but it's non-trivial. You have to create the Direct3D device yourself and then use ID2D1Factory::CreateDxgiSurfaceRenderTarget(). This allows you to configure the multisampling/antialiasing settings of the D3D device directly, and then meshes play along just fine (in fact I think you'd just always tell Direct2D to use aliased rendering). I haven't done this myself, but there is a MSDN sample that shows how to do this. It's not for the faint of heart ... and in order to do software rendering you have to initialize a WARP device. It does work, however.

Also, in Direct2D 1.1 (Windows 8, or Windows 7 + Platform Update), you can use the ID2D1CommandList interface for record/playback stuff. I'm not sure if that's implemented as "compile to GPU" (ala mesh), or if it's just macros (record/playback of commands).

Upvotes: 1

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