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I'm creating a Top-Down Racing Game in C++ using GLUT/OPENGL and SOIL first of all I just wanted some opinions on how the track should be done. I was thinking about using a tile-map and so far I've implemented one but it draws a polygon for each value in the tile-map then uses the assigned texture. This is obviously a really in efficient way of drawing the background.

So how to go about concatenating the appropriate texture's together into one PNG/GL-TEXTURE that way I can just draw one big polygon and use the texture created from the concatenation process.

Also what's the best way of going about collision detection when it comes to tile-maps?

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You have a few thousand polygons on screen, so what? Do you experience performance issues on anything better than a 5 year old cheap laptop? Cause you shouldn't, and if you do it's not because you use a few thousand polygons.

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    \$\begingroup\$ 1. 5+ year old computers are common. 2. If the OP is targeting older computers, the optimisation he suggests is sensible, and one that I have made myself. One screen-size polygon is significantly faster than one-polygon-per-tile on graphics hardware of that era. \$\endgroup\$
    – Chris Johnson
    Mar 7, 2012 at 19:33
  • \$\begingroup\$ For the majority of computers unable to handle this scenario it wouldn't be the poly count that cause problems unless we are talking about some seriously tiny tiles. 5 years is just what I feel comfortable claiming without risking that some nitpicker find an obscure counter-example. As for supporting old hardware incompatibility between the library and old hardware/driver stacks is probably a way bigger issue. But if you seriously think this detour is a good idea write so in an answer and prepare to get downvoted. \$\endgroup\$
    – aaaaaaaaaaaa
    Mar 7, 2012 at 21:08
  • \$\begingroup\$ It's just it would be more efficient in the long run. \$\endgroup\$
    – Joshua Barnett
    Mar 8, 2012 at 11:33
  • \$\begingroup\$ @SyntheCypher Not really, the theoretical gain is negligible. You would however increase load time and use a lot more video memory. Depending on the amount, that extra memory requirement could be what breaks the game on some old computers. \$\endgroup\$
    – aaaaaaaaaaaa
    Mar 8, 2012 at 15:54

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