Originially a Direct2D term, since diluted into “every frame start drawing from scratch”. Contrast with: retained mode.
Historically, OpenGL used function calls to emit vertices that taxed CPU heavily. After a round of optimizations it got command lists and vertex buffers. Later, the glBegin/glEnd and related functions got wiped from the Core Profile. You can still get them with the Compatibility Profile, but not all devices support it.
The good parts
- Being stateless allows to quickly turn your data into something on a screen.
- No need to track resources. Stop submitting commands and it’s all gone.
The bad parts
- You should keep your primitive usage down to a relatively low number.
- You only get some basic lighting models.
The okay part
- You can gain more performance by using canned draw calls and buffers.
- This can be enough to make a real, playable and fun game.
Somewhat related
Immediate mode GUI
While not being “immediate mode” literally…
A common misunderstanding is to mistake immediate mode gui for immediate mode rendering, which usually implies hammering your driver/GPU with a bunch of inefficient draw calls and state changes as the gui functions are called. This is NOT what Dear ImGui does. Dear ImGui outputs vertex buffers and a small list of draw calls batches.
… still kinda has that stateless aspect:
An IMGUI tries to minimize superfluous state duplication, state synchronization and state retention from the user’s point of view.
Known users
- Gloss
- lots of triangle examples out there on the internet