Better to draw graphics or show image of previously drawn image?

Question

I have an AWT app that I have a fundamental question about best practices. I have a (double buffered) panel that has objects that move across it. As it is now, on each iteration, each of the objects is redrawn every time with the graphics object from the panel. For instance, is it better to do this (I am going to water this down heavily):
class BlobImage{
     drawImage(Graphics g){
          g.drawABunchOfStuff
class BlobImagePanel{
     private List<BlobImage> blobImages = new ArrayList<BlobImage>();
     public repaint{
          Graphics g = this.getGraphics;
          for (BlobImage bi: blobImages){
               bi.drawImage(g);
     }Or is it better for the BlobImage to render a BufferedImage once, and then just give back that image each time like this:
class BlobImage{
     private BufferedImage bufferedImage=null;
     public BlobImage(){
          if (bufferedImage==null){
               bufferedImage = new BufferedImage(width, height, imageType);
               Graphics g = bufferedImage.getGraphics();
               this.drawImage(g);
     drawImage(Graphics g){
          g.drawABunchOfStuff;
     getImage(){
          return bufferedImage;
class BlobImagePanel{
     private List<BlobImage> blobImages = new ArrayList<BlobImage>();
     public repaint{
          Graphics g = this.getGraphics;
          for (BlobImage bi: blobImages){
               g.drawImage(bi.getImage,x,y,width,height,this);
}Assuming the x and y positions change each time the panel is repainted, is it better to continually draw each object with the parameterized graphics object with the new positions, or is it better to just create the image, and then let the panel move the entire image around?
Let me reiterate() that this is pseudocode, and probably not compilable. It's the concepts that I am asking about.
Edited by: J_Y_C on Jan 10, 2008 2:04 PM

Answer 1

Ah ha! ARGB, got it.
What I ended up doing was something like this:
GraphicsEnvironment ge = GraphicsEnvironment.getLocalGraphicsEnvironment();          
GraphicsDevice gs = ge.getDefaultScreenDevice();
GraphicsConfiguration gc = gs.getDefaultConfiguration();
redWordImage = gc.createCompatibleImage(this.dimensions.width, this.dimensions.height, Color.BITMASK);Would there be any reason I would be better off with one versus the other? Or am I just doing more typing to arrive at the same destination?