Occlusion Query
Advanced
The depth buffer determines visibility on a per-pixel basis. For performance reasons, it would be nice to be able to determine if a geometric object is visible before sending all of its (perhaps complex) geometry for rendering. Occlusion querys enable you to determine if a representative set of geometry will be visible after depth testing.
This is particularly useful for complex geometric objects with many polygons. Instead of rendering all of the geometry for a complex object, you might render its bounding box or another simplified representation that require less rendering resources. If OpenGL returns that no fragments or samples would have been modified by rendering that piece of geometry, you know that none of your ...
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