Game Development Patterns and Best Practices

The back buffer

As we said, double buffering works by using two framebuffers so that we are never setting pixels on the same buffer that is being used for the display. The framebuffer that is currently being displayed is called the front buffer or primary buffer, and the framebuffer that we are drawing to is called the back buffer or secondary buffer.

When drawing is completed on the back buffer, the buffers are swapped so that the back buffer is now the front buffer and the front buffer is now the back buffer. Of course, the buffers themselves are not swapped. Instead, pointers to the buffers are swapped. The monitor has a pointer to one buffer and is currently reading it. The graphics card has a pointer to another buffer that it uses for ...