Question about invisible layers

[AndyH]

I've a game where I have around 9 layers and a scrolling frame and its working great.

I want to create some effects with pixel shaders on new layers that will only be active or visible at certain times. How does MMF2 HWA handle layers that have pixel shaders that are set invisible?

Will it still execute the pixel shaders on invisible layers or does it only execute when the layer is visible? I couldn't tell any difference in speed with a test app, but I haven't been able to test on a lower spec PC.

[Looki]

...no, it really shouldn't, when they're invisible it doesn't render them at all, so the shader is never executed.

[BackStaged]

Just change the fCoeff by 0.1, it show in this case the Layer no?

[Jacob]

Any object that is not displayed should not be affected by shaders at all.

[BackStaged]

(Well, it's logic no? Set the visibility ON and set down the SemiTransparency coeff then?)

[AndyH]

My question has been answered by Looki in this case. I'm using lots of layers with shaders that by default are invisible and I'm switching them on and off as needed. Only one or two of these layers will ever be visible at the same time so my question was about the strain this might put on MMF, either due to video memory or GPU/CPU time being wasted or not. My assumption was that MMF would likely not waste time/resources on invisible layers but I could not prove this through my testing (it always ran at the correct speed and I observed no noticable slowdowns).