Immediate mode (computer graphics)

Immediate mode rendering is a style for application programming interfaces of graphics libraries, in which client calls directly cause rendering of graphics objects to the display, or in which the data to describe rendering primitives is held directly in a command list (in the case of immediate mode primitive rendering) . It does not preclude the use of double-buffering. In contrast to retained mode, lists of objects to be rendered are not saved by the API library. Instead, the application must re-issue all drawing commands required to describe the entire scene each time a new frame is required, regardless of actual changes. This method provides the maximum amount of control and flexibility to the application program.

Although drawing commands have to be re-issued for each new frame, modern systems using this method are generally able to avoid the unnecessary duplication of more memory-intensive display data by referring to that unchanging data (e.g. textures and vertex buffers) in the drawing commands.

See also