Flip is a term used to describe the act of switching surface pointers so that a back buffer becomes the front, often primary, buffer in the flipping chain and the front buffer is moved to the end of the flip chain, becoming a back buffer. Image modifications are usually applied to a back buffer surface, a flip performed, thus causing the back buffer to become the front buffer, which may then be seen by the user. Since flipping only modifies the addresses rather than copying surface memory, it is an efficient way to change which surface is being displayed.
A flipping chain is a set of two or more surfaces that are capable of being flipped. This chain consists of a front buffer and any number of back buffers.