The RSP state includes a vertex buffer, holding up to 16 vertices. This buffer can be loaded with any number of consecutive vertices, beginning at any location.
| Parameter | Values |
|---|---|
| v | pointer to a list of vertices |
| n | number of vertices |
| v0 | vertex buffer location to load vertices into |
At the time the vertices are loaded, they are transformed by the current matrix state and possibly shaded by the current lighting state.
Vertices are not re-transformed again, if the matrix state changes, the old (previously-transformed) vertices are not affected. This feature can be exploited to construct data that is knit together between two groups of points with different transformations (such as an elbow joint of a character).
Since the vertex processing is heavily vectorized and pipelined, it is important that each load loads as many vertices as possible.
Since the vertex loading is a relatively slow operation, it is also important that any triangles that share vertices be rendered using the same vertex state, rather than re-loading these same vertices later.
Please see Section 11.3.4, "Note on Coordinate Systems and Big Numbers" for information about keeping coordinates from becoming too large.