BufferStrategy vs DIY Double Buffering in JFrame

Question

Until now, I've done double buffering by creating and Image, drawing what I wanted to that Image using its associated Graphics object then draw that Image to the screen using the paint method's Graphics object. Recently, I learned about the BufferStrategy class and its uses. I was wondering what are the pros and cons of the two methods.

EDIT: I dont't think I made my question very clear. I wanted to know the pros/cons of both the DIY method and the BufferStrategy and when, if ever, I should use one or the other.

Answer 1

I recommend reading Painting in AWT and Swing if you haven't.

I don't think you usually need Do-It-Yourself double buffering if you're using JFrame. Swing has built in double buffering which is turned on by default. Manually doing this yourself will just slow things down. You can check if double buffering is on by calling isDoubleBufferingEnabled() on any of your JComponents.

There are cases where you may want to do this yourself, but that should be the exception rather than the rule. Maybe you're doing something involved like writing a game, in which case maybe my advice doesn't apply. Anyway, hopefully the above is useful info.

Answer 2

I've always had good results using the default BufferStrategy by being careful to

• Always construct GUI components on the EDT
• Never draw from a thread except the EDT

This excellent example must double buffer because it draws continually on the initial thread rather than the EDT. In contrast, this fairly busy example relies on nothing more than repaint() called in response to a Swing Timer. I rarely need an offscreen buffer except for a composite. Finally, this tutorial article offers more guidelines.