Re: [AD] No more video/system bitmaps

[ Thread Index | Date Index | More lists.liballeg.org/allegro-developers Archives ]


On Saturday, June 25, 2005, at 05:20  am, Robert Ohannessian wrote:


Plus,
displays need extra variables for placement -- I'd rather have monitor
position on desks stored in a convient place inside the struct with
the
system display buffer.  (IE, I like my monitor on the left side of my
laptop, so when I pick display one I should be able to easily figure
out where the user has placed it.)


I don't follow. Can you give an example?

I think he means that, when "Allegro-of-the-Future" handles multiple windows and multiple monitors, there are some properties that would apply to a top-level window (title, position, ...) that don't apply to other bitmaps. So, there should be a DISPLAY object separate from BITMAP.


Essentially, since Mac OS X is already loading all windows, etc., into
texture ram, Allegro's actually a lot slower than it could be.  If
there were somehow a method of marking bitmaps as
read-only-and-for-texture-memory, the system could make use of all that
3D horsepower for much better framerates and effects.
It uses a QuickDraw view, which is really a legacy API from OS 9 days. It's not been deprecated yet, but I expect it will be. OpenGL is definitely the way to go for Mac graphics in the foreseeable future - AFAIK there are no plans for Apple to go it alone, and invent the equivalent of Direct3D.

You don't *need* to make bitmaps read-only for this to work. You just
need to better encapsulate it.
The problem with the current API is almost 'psychological' - it looks, to the programmer, like all bitmap operations are equal. In fact, writing to a video bitmap _could_ be quite a slow operation involving re-loading a texture onto the graphics card.
The rest can be done automagically behind
your back. This is how ARB_vertex_buffer_object works, for vertex
buffers.

Bob, could you explain how ARB_vertex_buffer_object works, as an example?

Pete





Mail converted by MHonArc 2.6.19+ http://listengine.tuxfamily.org/