2D acceleration on NVidia

SDL Development
1

Hi all,
I’m sure this has been already discussed, but I’m new to the list and I
couldn’t find a searchable archives of it.
Is there any way to get 2D acceleration (HWSURFACE, blits etc.) on NVidia
cards ? All the acceleration flags in the SDL_VideoInfo structure are null no
matter what I do.
I checked it on:

  • Mandrake 8.1, XFree86 4.1, GeForce2MX200, SDL 1.2.4, NVidia drivers 1531
    (user/root, 32bpp/16bpp/8bpp)
  • Mandrake 8.1, XFree86 4.1, GeForce2MX200, SDL 1.2.4, nv driver from XF86
    (user/root, 32bpp/16bpp/8bpp)
  • Debian 3.0, XFree86 4.1, GeForce256, SDL 1.2.4, NVidia drivers 2880
    (user, 32bpp)
    mtrr registers seem to be properly set, 3D acceleration works fine (on NVidia
    drivers of course). The XVideo extension does seem to work and YUV blits are
    accelerated.
    Can anyone point me in some direction ?
    Or should I just dump NVidia (as people from MPlayer suggest) ?
    Regards,
    Jacek–
    ±------------------------------------+
    |from: J.C.Wojdel |
    | J.C.Wojdel at cs.tudelft.nl |
    ±------------------------------------+
2

I used Allegro under Linux some time ago, and when I executed my programs as
root, allegro could make use of DGA (http://www.xfree86.org/4.2.0/apm3.html)
and the programs ran incredibly smoothly. GeForce 2 MX here.

-Lars> ----- Original Message -----

From: wojdel@kbs.twi.tudelft.nl (Jacek Wojdel)
To:
Sent: Friday, May 03, 2002 4:22 AM
Subject: [SDL] 2D acceleration on NVidia.

Hi all,
I’m sure this has been already discussed, but I’m new to the list and I
couldn’t find a searchable archives of it.
Is there any way to get 2D acceleration (HWSURFACE, blits etc.) on NVidia
cards ? All the acceleration flags in the SDL_VideoInfo structure are null
no
matter what I do.
I checked it on:

  • Mandrake 8.1, XFree86 4.1, GeForce2MX200, SDL 1.2.4, NVidia drivers 1531
    (user/root, 32bpp/16bpp/8bpp)
  • Mandrake 8.1, XFree86 4.1, GeForce2MX200, SDL 1.2.4, nv driver from XF86
    (user/root, 32bpp/16bpp/8bpp)
  • Debian 3.0, XFree86 4.1, GeForce256, SDL 1.2.4, NVidia drivers 2880
    (user, 32bpp)
    mtrr registers seem to be properly set, 3D acceleration works fine (on
    NVidia
    drivers of course). The XVideo extension does seem to work and YUV blits
    are
    accelerated.
    Can anyone point me in some direction ?
    Or should I just dump NVidia (as people from MPlayer suggest) ?
    Regards,
    Jacek

–
±------------------------------------+
|from: J.C.Wojdel |
| J.C.Wojdel at cs.tudelft.nl |
±------------------------------------+

SDL mailing list
SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl

3

Hi all,
I’m sure this has been already discussed, but I’m new to the list and I
couldn’t find a searchable archives of it.
Is there any way to get 2D acceleration (HWSURFACE, blits etc.) on NVidia
cards ? All the acceleration flags in the SDL_VideoInfo structure are null no
matter what I do.
I checked it on:

  • Mandrake 8.1, XFree86 4.1, GeForce2MX200, SDL 1.2.4, NVidia drivers 1531
    (user/root, 32bpp/16bpp/8bpp)
  • Mandrake 8.1, XFree86 4.1, GeForce2MX200, SDL 1.2.4, nv driver from XF86
    (user/root, 32bpp/16bpp/8bpp)
  • Debian 3.0, XFree86 4.1, GeForce256, SDL 1.2.4, NVidia drivers 2880
    (user, 32bpp)
    mtrr registers seem to be properly set, 3D acceleration works fine (on NVidia
    drivers of course). The XVideo extension does seem to work and YUV blits are
    accelerated.

Can anyone point me in some direction ?

The SDL faq states this:

"Q: I have an accelerated video card, but SDL tells me that that I have zero
video memory and no acceleration!

this is the case for the X11 target which always presents you with a software
framebuffer. Your video memory will always be reported to be zero if no
acceleration is available.

Note that this has nothing to do with 3D acceleration, just 2D hardware
acceleration support in the underlying operating system graphics interface."

Or should I just dump NVidia (as people from MPlayer suggest) ?

No, the above Q & A from the FAQ should answer your question. As far as DGA is
concerned, it has it’s own set of issues, and SDL is not at fault here. If you
want really fast 2d acceleration though, try David Olofson’s glSDL:

http://olofson.net/mixed.html

It’s still in beta, but honestly this is the fastest most portable solution
IMO if you want to get really great 2d performance.

-EvilTypeGuyOn Fri, May 03, 2002 at 01:22:02PM +0200, Jacek Wojdel wrote:
A: Not all display targets can make use of hardware acceleration. In particular,

4

I’m sure this has been already discussed, but I’m new to the list and I
couldn’t find a searchable archives of it.
Is there any way to get 2D acceleration (HWSURFACE, blits etc.) on NVidia
cards ? All the acceleration flags in the SDL_VideoInfo structure are null no
matter what I do.

Not under X11. It has nothing to do with Nvidia.

Or should I just dump NVidia (as people from MPlayer suggest) ?

If you want 2D hardware surfaces, dump X11. You usually don’t need
hardware surfaces, though. If you must have them…use OpenGL. Or
Windows. :slight_smile:

–ryan.

5

Thx to all for the info. I just got a bit confused with the SF86
documentation saying “hardware accelerated” all over the place, which one
should read: “server-side hardware accelerated” and not “client-side”.
The glSDL looks promising though.
And BTW I’m writting some 2D only stuff with a lots of blits, so I fo need
hardware surfaces/blits etc.
Regards,
Jacek–
±------------------------------------+
|from: J.C.Wojdel |
| J.C.Wojdel at cs.tudelft.nl |
±------------------------------------+

6

Thx to all for the info. I just got a bit confused with the SF86
documentation saying “hardware accelerated” all over the place, which one
should read: “server-side hardware accelerated” and not “client-side”.
The glSDL looks promising though.
And BTW I’m writting some 2D only stuff with a lots of blits, so I fo need
hardware surfaces/blits etc.

Also, you can try out DGA under SDL:
http://www.libsdl.org/faq/FAQ-Linux.html#LINUX_12

See ya,
-Sam Lantinga, Software Engineer, Blizzard Entertainment