How 'bad' is GLDrawText?

BlitzMax Forums/OpenGL Module/How 'bad' is GLDrawText?

eindbaas(Posted 2006) [#1]
I'd like to draw myself a fairly nice HUD to give me visual feeback over the state of some running timed sequencers i've made. This (the visual feedback) is not the most important part of what i'm making, it will be switched off most of the time, but i'd like it to run steady and sync over the OpenGL visuals in case it *is* turned on.

So i now i draw something inscreen using GLDrawText, but the help in BMax tells me "This function is intended for debugging purposes only - performance is unlikely to be stellar."

I must admit that i don't know the exat meaning of the word stellar, but seeing it in the context it must be bad.

a few questions on this:
- how bad is this?
- if this function is really, really only for debugging: what should i use then? i don't need 3d-fonts, i just want to draw some simple text onto the framebuffer
- why is GLDrawText, amongst a few other functions, mentioned in the Bmax-IDE help? Are they Bmax-specific?


xlsior(Posted 2006) [#2]
I must admit that i don't know the exat meaning of the word stellar, but seeing it in the context it must be bad


stellar = outstanding

So all it says is that it is 'unlikely to be outstanding', not that it's necessarily bad.


JoshK(Posted 2006) [#3]
If it uses the calllist method I use to draw text, it will be very, very slow.