Double buffering is a technique that uses two buffers to optimise frame transitions to achieve smooth on-screen animation. Page flipping and vertical synchronisation enable natural graphics by adjusting the timing of buffer swaps to reduce tearing.

The world is continuous, but recordings can’t capture all that continuity. So when you take a video with a video camera, it records and displays 24 pictures (called frames) in about one second. This rapid display of 24 pictures per second is the basic principle of animation.

History and development of animation technology

Animation technology has become increasingly important not only in video, but also in the field of computer graphics. In the early days, animation was based on simple frames, but as technology evolved, more complex and natural movements were required. Against this backdrop, advances in computer graphics have played an important role in a variety of industries, including games, film, and virtual reality. In particular, the need for high-resolution screens and high frame rates has led to the need for faster and more efficient methods.
Animation in computer graphics works on a similar principle. However, unlike video, where each frame of a film contains motion, the frames of a computer-drawn animation are completely still. You can easily see this difference by capturing a still image of a video and a scene from a game you’re playing. When you freeze a video, the image is not as sharp, because the frames of the video include the action between frames.

Why you need more frames

Computer animation requires more frames than video to create natural movement. It’s generally accepted that at least 60 frames per second are needed for natural animation in computer graphics. The time it takes to draw each frame must be reduced to 16 ms or less, so optimising the speed at which the screen is updated becomes a major challenge.
In the early days of computer animation, monitors worked by directly updating the screen they were viewing. While this was simple to implement, it had the problem of displaying unfinished frames on the screen while drawing a frame. The technique that emerged to solve this problem is called double buffering.

The concept and principle of double buffering

A ‘buffer’ is an area of memory used to output the screen to the monitor. Double buffering uses two buffers, one to prepare the frame to be displayed on the screen and the other to prepare the next frame. This solves the problem of incomplete frames appearing on the screen.
In the traditional double buffering method, the frame drawn in the back buffer is copied to the front buffer. However, as monitor resolutions increased, the copying time increased and became less efficient. We needed a new way to make the transition faster.

Page Flipping and performance improvements

Page flipping is a form of double buffering, where the roles of the back buffer and front buffer are swapped: the back buffer becomes the front buffer in one frame and vice versa. This process is very fast because there is no copying, only role swapping.
However, there is a downside to this method. If the buffer swap occurs while the monitor is updating the screen, it can cause ‘tearing,’ which is the appearance of tearing on the screen. This usually happens when the buffer swap occurs while the monitor is reading data sequentially.

V-Sync and vertical sync

A technology that has emerged to address tearing is vertical synchronisation (V-sync). V-sync prevents tearing by only swapping buffers during vertical intervals when the monitor is not refreshing the screen. This method effectively solves tearing by timing the buffer replacement with the monitor’s refresh rate.
These advances in graphics technology have been applied to a wide range of applications, including high-performance gaming, 3D animation, and real-time rendering. These techniques are becoming increasingly important as higher frame rates and smoother graphical transitions are essential for next-generation interfaces such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR).

Triple buffering and the challenges of modern animation

More recently, double buffering has been replaced by a technique called triple buffering. This method of using three buffers allows more data to be processed, improving animation smoothness and performance at the same time. The use of multiple buffers is known to be advantageous, especially for high-end graphics work or real-time rendering to overcome performance issues.
These techniques are essential for achieving natural-looking graphics and are becoming one of the main research topics in computer science to provide faster frame transitions and optimal animation quality.

Conclusion: The future of computer graphics technology

Computer graphics technology is becoming an integral part of many digital media, not just animation. Double buffering is just the beginning, and new buffering techniques will continue to be developed to provide even better performance. This will enable more immersive graphics experiences and higher-performance animations.
Advances in computer graphics continue to be made, and the future of animation is only going to get brighter as techniques for processing more frames faster become a reality.