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Which requires less processing: four lines or a box?

I want to have the outline of a box which four lines would accomplish, but would it be faster to just make a box with a black box inside it to simulate an outline? Which? Thanks.

im guessing that the box command is just four lines...so about the same

Err, I've peeked into some D3D code before... seems like you can draw a box with a single function, so I'm guessing that the box is faster.

I'd say that in a normal case, a box would be faster. But the way it sounds, since you only want an outline, it would take a lot less processing power to produce 4 thin lines as opposed to 2 very large boxes.

Just a thought.

I'm not sure if its the same, but in an old script language I used, it changed the color of the pixels (changing some bytes) of the buffer bitmap (double-buffering).

for two boxes that create an outline (size 300x300):

for a=1 to 300
for b=1 to 300
ink #FFFFFF
pix a,b
next b
next a
for a=2 to 299
for b=2 to 299
ink #000000
pix a,b
next b
next a

This is the code my old language used, its the same as:

ink rgb(255,255,255),rgb(255,255,255)
box 1,1,300,300
ink rgb(0,0,0),rgb(0,0,0)
box 2,2,299,299

We can calculate how many times he changes the color of the pixels:
1 to 300 = 300
1 to 300 = 300 x
----------------
.........90000 times

2 to 299 = 298
2 to 299 = 298 x
----------------
.........88804 times

90000 + 88804 = 178804 changes



For 4 lines (same result):

Line 1,1,1,300
line 1,1,300,1
line 300,1,1,300
line 1,300,300,300

again, the calculation:
300 + 300 + 300 + 300 = 1200 changes.


Im not sure if darkbasic is doing this, but it surely speed up things by using 4 lines instead of 2 boxes in that old script language