OpenGL Insights

Monitoring

Graphics Memory Usage

Aleksandar Dimitrijevi

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38.1 Introduction

The str uggle to achieve higher levels of realism in computer graphics always l eads

to high memory demands. Despite the fact that modern graphics accelerators are

equipped with more and more onboard memory with each new generation, applica-

tions’ demands grow even faster. Since memory is a limited and expensive resource,

an application needs tools to help it make clever decisions on how this resource can

be used more effectively.

Until several years ago, OpenGL implementations hid resource management

from applications. The resource shielding was justified by stating that it