Editing Scanline rendering (section)

==Use in realtime rendering==

The early Evans & Sutherland ESIG line of image-generators (IGs) employed the technique in hardware 'on the fly', to generate images one raster-line at a time without a [[framebuffer]], saving the need for then costly memory. Later variants used a hybrid approach.

The [[Nintendo DS]] is the latest hardware to render 3D scenes in this manner, with the option of caching the rasterized images into VRAM.

The [[Sprite (computer graphics)|sprite hardware]] prevalent in 1980s games machines can be considered a simple 2D form of scanline rendering.

The technique was used in the first Quake engine for software rendering of environments (but moving objects were [[Z-buffering|Z-buffered]] over the top). Static scenery used [[Binary space partitioning|BSP]]-derived sorting for priority. It proved better than [[Z-buffering|Z-buffer]]/[[Painter's algorithm|painter's]] type algorithms at handling scenes of high depth complexity with costly pixel operations (i.e. perspective-correct [[texture mapping]] without hardware assist). This use preceded the widespread adoption of Z-buffer-based GPUs now common in PCs.

Sony experimented with software scanline renderers on a second [[Cell (microprocessor)|Cell]] processor during the development of the [[PlayStation 3]], before settling on a conventional CPU/GPU arrangement.