Re: [hatari-devel] New option --disable-video and --benchmark

[Eero Tamminen <oak@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

On 02/24/2017 09:23 PM, Nicolas Pomarède wrote:
> I'd rather keep --disable-video <bool>, because I think it could be
> added to the config file later (for people that don't / can't use the
> command line option).
>
> But maybe sometime you put a default value in the
> config file, but you want to override it later on the command line.

Sorry, but I don't really see where it's more convenient
like that.  Can you give an example?

Benchmarking Hatari requires anyway using Hatari's
other command line options, so one more shouldn't be
a problem, especially as that would normally be scripted.

Besides, "--configfile /path/to/novideo.cfg" is even longer
to  type than "--disable-video"...


And for the music listening case you mentioned, user
cannot see/use the Atari GUI to select the song(s), so
he needs to anyway script Hatari invocation to select
suitable song, and inject its path to emulation with
the help of hatari-prg-args script.

-> frame-skip is more convenient for this


> So, dummy driver might be good if you want to run an SDL program
> on a system without windows capabilities, but for benchmarking it
> doesn't disable the cost of SDL calls like Copy and Render,
> the gain is really low (5-10% or less) compared to 35-40% by
> really disabling SDL calls.

IMHO the main point of using:
	setenv("SDL_VIDEODRIVER", "dummy", 1);

Is that you do not get any GUI. :-)

However, it then being impossible for the user to invoke any
Hatari shortcuts (like quit, and debugger invocation),
makes it less useful e.g. for headless usage.

I could imagine it being used when:
- Invoking Hatari through hconsole (or python GUI)
- Enabling NatFeats and having the invoked Atari program
  call the emulator Quit functionality when it ends, or
- Using --run-vbls option

Maybe that should have another option, e.g. --no-ui/--no-gui,
which checks that either remote control socket, natfeats or
--run-vbls is used?


	- Eero