2D rendering poll, status + addition

16 replies so far, covering 23 machines. Thanks! :slight_smile:

Now, the first question (ā€œConsidering a very fast scrolling action game,
would you preferā€) was quite stupid - If you can have 640x480 fast and
smooth, or slow and not very smooth, which do you prefer? :wink:

It was intended as a trade-off question, but that a) alternative sneaked
in accidentally. heh (Still, there were a few answers that were not
"a)"ā€¦ Interesting.)

So, letā€™s add a poperly formulated quesition:

  1. If you donā€™t have working 3D acceleration, would you rather have

    a) very fast (>70 fps) 320x240 graphics, or

    b) slow (<30 fps) but high quality 640x480 graphics?

*** Please reply off the list this time as well. :slight_smile: ***

Thanks!

//David Olofson ā€” Programmer, Reologica Instruments AB

.- Coming soon from VaporWare Incā€¦------------------------.
| The Return of Audiality! Real, working software. Really! |
| Real time and off-line synthesis, scripting, MIDI, LGPLā€¦|
-----------------------------------> (Public Release RSN) -' .- M A I A -------------------------------------------------. | The Multimedia Application Integration Architecture |----------------------------> http://www.linuxdj.com/maia -ā€™
.- David Olofson -------------------------------------------.
| Audio Hacker - Open Source Advocate - Singer - Songwriter |
`-------------------------------------> http://olofson.net -ā€™

16 replies so far, covering 23 machines. Thanks! :slight_smile:

Now, the first question (ā€œConsidering a very fast scrolling action game,
would you preferā€) was quite stupid - If you can have 640x480 fast and
smooth, or slow and not very smooth, which do you prefer? :wink:

It was intended as a trade-off question, but that a) alternative sneaked
in accidentally. heh (Still, there were a few answers that were not
"a)"ā€¦ Interesting.)

For example, 30fps wouldnā€™t be adequate for a heavy arcade game like
abuse, whereas 30 would be acceptable for an RTS like StarCraft. In
both cases (now anyway) 320x240 (or 200) is too low.
So the answer isā€¦ bothā€¦ depending :). If a game was forced
signifigently under 30fps, sacrifice detail like image quality or
transparencies for resolution. I canā€™t think of any case in which
320x240 is acceptable anymore in modern games.

That being said, itā€™s impossible to make a visually competitive pure
arcade without acceleration, so much of the argument is moot. (notice I
said competitive and pure arcade)On Wed, 2002-09-25 at 07:34, David Olofson wrote:

So, letā€™s add a poperly formulated quesition:

  1. If you donā€™t have working 3D acceleration, would you rather have

a) very fast (>70 fps) 320x240 graphics, or

b) slow (<30 fps) but high quality 640x480 graphics?

*** Please reply off the list this time as well. :slight_smile: ***

Thanks!

//David Olofson ā€” Programmer, Reologica Instruments AB

.- Coming soon from VaporWare Incā€¦------------------------.
| The Return of Audiality! Real, working software. Really! |
| Real time and off-line synthesis, scripting, MIDI, LGPLā€¦|
-----------------------------------> (Public Release RSN) -' .- M A I A -------------------------------------------------. | The Multimedia Application Integration Architecture |----------------------------> http://www.linuxdj.com/maia -ā€™
.- David Olofson -------------------------------------------.
| Audio Hacker - Open Source Advocate - Singer - Songwriter |
`-------------------------------------> http://olofson.net -ā€™


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

ā€“
Jimmy <@Jimmy>
Jimmyā€™s World.org
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[ā€¦]

For example, 30fps wouldnā€™t be adequate for a heavy arcade game like
abuse, whereas 30 would be acceptable for an RTS like StarCraft. In
both cases (now anyway) 320x240 (or 200) is too low.
So the answer isā€¦ bothā€¦ depending :). If a game was forced
signifigently under 30fps, sacrifice detail like image quality or
transparencies for resolution. I canā€™t think of any case in which
320x240 is acceptable anymore in modern games.

Right. Itā€™s really the last resort, and itā€™s questionable if itā€™s at all
worth the time needed for implementing it. Given software rendering
support, itā€™s ā€œjustā€ a matter of scaling graphics down, but doing it
nicely is far from trivial. (One would probably have to use some kind
of adaptive high degree interpolation to avoid just blurring all detail
away.)

That being said, itā€™s impossible to make a visually competitive pure
arcade without acceleration, so much of the argument is moot. (notice
I said competitive and pure arcade)

Yeah. For actual arcade machines, normal PC games (ie ā€œrequires P-II 300
or faster + OpenGL with at least 32 MB VRAMā€) and games for new (3D)
consoles, software rendering is just not relevant. Well, except for some
procedural texture effects, perhaps.

And of course, for all these personal hobby projects, itā€™s probably
better to pick a tool that delivers useful results with reasonable
development effort, and just focus on the game. Spending months
optimizing a software engine thatā€™s shot down by the CPU/VRAM bottleneck
anyway just doesnā€™t seem very sensible, IMHO.

//David Olofson ā€” Programmer, Reologica Instruments AB

.- Coming soon from VaporWare Incā€¦------------------------.
| The Return of Audiality! Real, working software. Really! |
| Real time and off-line synthesis, scripting, MIDI, LGPLā€¦|
-----------------------------------> (Public Release RSN) -' .- M A I A -------------------------------------------------. | The Multimedia Application Integration Architecture |----------------------------> http://www.linuxdj.com/maia -ā€™
.- David Olofson -------------------------------------------.
| Audio Hacker - Open Source Advocate - Singer - Songwriter |
`-------------------------------------> http://olofson.net -'On Wednesday 25 September 2002 16:56, Jimmy wrote:

And of course, for all these personal hobby projects, itā€™s probably
better to pick a tool that delivers useful results with reasonable
development effort, and just focus on the game. Spending months
optimizing a software engine thatā€™s shot down by the CPU/VRAM bottleneck
anyway just doesnā€™t seem very sensible, IMHO.

Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy to be at the ass end of an 8 month
project to get a full engine running thatā€™s completely software driven.
sigh
Not that this email is particularly on-topic. I just wanted to share my
angst, and everyone sitting around me here at work is ignoring me.
Bastards. :)On Wed, 2002-09-25 at 13:23, David Olofson wrote:

//David Olofson ā€” Programmer, Reologica Instruments AB

.- Coming soon from VaporWare Incā€¦------------------------.
| The Return of Audiality! Real, working software. Really! |
| Real time and off-line synthesis, scripting, MIDI, LGPLā€¦|
-----------------------------------> (Public Release RSN) -' .- M A I A -------------------------------------------------. | The Multimedia Application Integration Architecture |----------------------------> http://www.linuxdj.com/maia -ā€™
.- David Olofson -------------------------------------------.
| Audio Hacker - Open Source Advocate - Singer - Songwriter |
`-------------------------------------> http://olofson.net -ā€™


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

ā€“
Jimmy <@Jimmy>
Jimmyā€™s World.org
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Personally I would prefer 512x384 with 50-60 fps :wink:

Best Regards,
^IoDream^> ----- Original Message -----

From: david.olofson@reologica.se (David Olofson)
To:
Sent: Wednesday, September 25, 2002 7:23 PM
Subject: Re: [SDL] 2D rendering poll, status + addition

On Wednesday 25 September 2002 16:56, Jimmy wrote:
[ā€¦]

For example, 30fps wouldnā€™t be adequate for a heavy arcade game like
abuse, whereas 30 would be acceptable for an RTS like StarCraft. In
both cases (now anyway) 320x240 (or 200) is too low.
So the answer isā€¦ bothā€¦ depending :). If a game was forced
signifigently under 30fps, sacrifice detail like image quality or
transparencies for resolution. I canā€™t think of any case in which
320x240 is acceptable anymore in modern games.

Right. Itā€™s really the last resort, and itā€™s questionable if itā€™s at all
worth the time needed for implementing it. Given software rendering
support, itā€™s ā€œjustā€ a matter of scaling graphics down, but doing it
nicely is far from trivial. (One would probably have to use some kind
of adaptive high degree interpolation to avoid just blurring all detail
away.)

That being said, itā€™s impossible to make a visually competitive pure
arcade without acceleration, so much of the argument is moot. (notice
I said competitive and pure arcade)

Yeah. For actual arcade machines, normal PC games (ie ā€œrequires P-II 300
or faster + OpenGL with at least 32 MB VRAMā€) and games for new (3D)
consoles, software rendering is just not relevant. Well, except for some
procedural texture effects, perhaps.

And of course, for all these personal hobby projects, itā€™s probably
better to pick a tool that delivers useful results with reasonable
development effort, and just focus on the game. Spending months
optimizing a software engine thatā€™s shot down by the CPU/VRAM bottleneck
anyway just doesnā€™t seem very sensible, IMHO.

//David Olofson ā€” Programmer, Reologica Instruments AB

.- Coming soon from VaporWare Incā€¦------------------------.
| The Return of Audiality! Real, working software. Really! |
| Real time and off-line synthesis, scripting, MIDI, LGPLā€¦|
-----------------------------------> (Public Release RSN) -' .- M A I A -------------------------------------------------. | The Multimedia Application Integration Architecture |----------------------------> http://www.linuxdj.com/maia -ā€™
.- David Olofson -------------------------------------------.
| Audio Hacker - Open Source Advocate - Singer - Songwriter |
`-------------------------------------> http://olofson.net -ā€™


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


Etudiant: Wanadoo tā€™offre le Pack eXtense Haut D?bit soit 150,92 euros dā€™?conomies !
Et pour 1 euro de plus, re?ois le CD-ROM du jeu Dark Age of Camelot

For most linux users, anything under 640x480 isnt acceptable because most
XFree drivers dont support anything under that. Abuse for SDL pixel doubles
everything to stretch because of this (instead of displaying at a native res)

320x240 was accptable once. If you are trying to get that 386 Retro feel,
you want that. (Of course, you do have to stretch to 640x480) It is possible,
however, to write the game for a 320x240 res, and then pixel double all the
sprites and graphics and such, and then get (basically) subpixel accurate
graphics due to the fact your actually displaying on 640x480. (Im not sure,
but I heard Abuse for SDL does that)

Now, of course, if this was a 3D game we were talking about, res doesnt matter.On 25-Sep-2002, IoDream wrote:

Personally I would prefer 512x384 with 50-60 fps :wink:

Best Regards,
^IoDream^

----- Original Message -----
From: ā€œDavid Olofsonā€ <david.olofson at reologica.se>
To:
Sent: Wednesday, September 25, 2002 7:23 PM
Subject: Re: [SDL] 2D rendering poll, status + addition

On Wednesday 25 September 2002 16:56, Jimmy wrote:
[ā€¦]

For example, 30fps wouldnā€™t be adequate for a heavy arcade game like
abuse, whereas 30 would be acceptable for an RTS like StarCraft. In
both cases (now anyway) 320x240 (or 200) is too low.
So the answer isā€¦ bothā€¦ depending :). If a game was forced
signifigently under 30fps, sacrifice detail like image quality or
transparencies for resolution. I canā€™t think of any case in which
320x240 is acceptable anymore in modern games.

Right. Itā€™s really the last resort, and itā€™s questionable if itā€™s at all
worth the time needed for implementing it. Given software rendering
support, itā€™s ā€œjustā€ a matter of scaling graphics down, but doing it
nicely is far from trivial. (One would probably have to use some kind
of adaptive high degree interpolation to avoid just blurring all detail
away.)

That being said, itā€™s impossible to make a visually competitive pure
arcade without acceleration, so much of the argument is moot. (notice
I said competitive and pure arcade)

Yeah. For actual arcade machines, normal PC games (ie ā€œrequires P-II 300
or faster + OpenGL with at least 32 MB VRAMā€) and games for new (3D)
consoles, software rendering is just not relevant. Well, except for some
procedural texture effects, perhaps.

And of course, for all these personal hobby projects, itā€™s probably
better to pick a tool that delivers useful results with reasonable
development effort, and just focus on the game. Spending months
optimizing a software engine thatā€™s shot down by the CPU/VRAM bottleneck
anyway just doesnā€™t seem very sensible, IMHO.

//David Olofson ā€” Programmer, Reologica Instruments AB

.- Coming soon from VaporWare Incā€¦------------------------.
| The Return of Audiality! Real, working software. Really! |
| Real time and off-line synthesis, scripting, MIDI, LGPLā€¦|
-----------------------------------> (Public Release RSN) -' .- M A I A -------------------------------------------------. | The Multimedia Application Integration Architecture |----------------------------> http://www.linuxdj.com/maia -ā€™
.- David Olofson -------------------------------------------.
| Audio Hacker - Open Source Advocate - Singer - Songwriter |
`-------------------------------------> http://olofson.net -ā€™


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


Etudiant: Wanadoo tā€™offre le Pack eXtense Haut D?bit soit 150,92 euros dā€™?conomies !
Et pour 1 euro de plus, re?ois le CD-ROM du jeu Dark Age of Camelot


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

ā€“
Patrick ā€œDiablo-D3ā€ McFarland || unknown at panax.com
"Computer games donā€™t affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, weā€™d
all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to
repetitive electronic music." --Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, Inc, 1989

And of course, for all these personal hobby projects, itā€™s probably
better to pick a tool that delivers useful results with reasonable
development effort, and just focus on the game. Spending months
optimizing a software engine thatā€™s shot down by the CPU/VRAM
bottleneck anyway just doesnā€™t seem very sensible, IMHO.

Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy to be at the ass end of an 8 month
project to get a full engine running thatā€™s completely software driven.
sigh

Well, keep in mind that this is all about fullscreen scrolling action
games, really. Iā€™m not saying that software rendering is a bad idea for
games with more sane rendering requirements.

Not that this email is particularly on-topic. I just wanted to share
my angst, and everyone sitting around me here at work is ignoring me.
Bastards. :slight_smile:

hehe

Maybe theyā€™re just totally sure that the design decision was right, so
they donā€™t get what youā€™re talking about?

//David Olofson - Programmer, Composer, Open Source Advocate

.- Coming soon from VaporWare Incā€¦------------------------.
| The Return of Audiality! Real, working software. Really! |
| Real time and off-line synthesis, scripting, MIDI, LGPLā€¦|
-----------------------------------> (Public Release RSN) -' .- M A I A -------------------------------------------------. | The Multimedia Application Integration Architecture |----------------------------> http://www.linuxdj.com/maia -ā€™
ā€” http://olofson.net ā€” http://www.reologica.se ā€”On Wednesday 25 September 2002 19:35, Jimmy wrote:

On Wed, 2002-09-25 at 13:23, David Olofson wrote:

Thatā€™s a nice compromise, but that resolution seems to be broken or
entirely unsupported more often than notā€¦ :-/

That said, if the engine supports scaling with non-integer factors, itā€™s
just a matter of adding that resolution to the list of alternatives. If
it works for you, fine. If not, itā€™s either 320x240 or 640x480.

//David Olofson - Programmer, Composer, Open Source Advocate

.- Coming soon from VaporWare Incā€¦------------------------.
| The Return of Audiality! Real, working software. Really! |
| Real time and off-line synthesis, scripting, MIDI, LGPLā€¦|
-----------------------------------> (Public Release RSN) -' .- M A I A -------------------------------------------------. | The Multimedia Application Integration Architecture |----------------------------> http://www.linuxdj.com/maia -ā€™
ā€” http://olofson.net ā€” http://www.reologica.se ā€”On Wednesday 25 September 2002 19:48, IoDream wrote:

Personally I would prefer 512x384 with 50-60 fps :wink:

For most linux users, anything under 640x480 isnt acceptable because
most XFree drivers dont support anything under that.

I havenā€™t see one that doesnā€™t support just about any resolution so far.
However, there rarely are modelines for sub 640x480 modes in distros -
but thatā€™s an issue with distros rather than XFree or itā€™s drivers.

Abuse for SDL
pixel doubles everything to stretch because of this (instead of
displaying at a native res)

Sounds like a bad idea to me, unless itā€™s optionalā€¦

320x240 was accptable once. If you are trying to get that 386 Retro
feel, you want that. (Of course, you do have to stretch to 640x480)

ā€¦unless you can get a read 320x240 mode, at least.

It
is possible, however, to write the game for a 320x240 res, and then
pixel double all the sprites and graphics and such, and then get
(basically) subpixel accurate graphics due to the fact your actually
displaying on 640x480. (Im not sure, but I heard Abuse for SDL does
that)

So does Kobo Deluxe. The graphics engine has 8 fraction bits for all
coordinates, for the motion interpolation, so itā€™s just a matter of using
them. The upcoming native OpenGL mode (without glSDL) will use all of
them, for ultra smooth animation even in lower resolutions.

Now, of course, if this was a 3D game we were talking about, res doesnt
matter.

Well, Iā€™m talking about fullscreen scrolling 2D games. (3D games arenā€™t
an issue as they need to transform everything anyway. Scaling the view to
whatever resolution is trivial.)

//David Olofson - Programmer, Composer, Open Source Advocate

.- Coming soon from VaporWare Incā€¦------------------------.
| The Return of Audiality! Real, working software. Really! |
| Real time and off-line synthesis, scripting, MIDI, LGPLā€¦|
-----------------------------------> (Public Release RSN) -' .- M A I A -------------------------------------------------. | The Multimedia Application Integration Architecture |----------------------------> http://www.linuxdj.com/maia -ā€™
ā€” http://olofson.net ā€” http://www.reologica.se ā€”On Thursday 26 September 2002 12:08, Patrick McFarland wrote:

Actually, almost any XFree driver in my experience will support 320x240
with the proper modeline in your XF86Config. For example, I can run
twilight in hardware accelerated OpenGL mode at 320x240 and get around
1200fps :DOn Thu, 2002-09-26 at 05:08, Patrick McFarland wrote:

For most linux users, anything under 640x480 isnt acceptable because most
XFree drivers dont support anything under that. Abuse for SDL pixel doubles
everything to stretch because of this (instead of displaying at a native res)

For most linux users, anything under 640x480 isnt acceptable because
most XFree drivers dont support anything under that.

I havenā€™t see one that doesnā€™t support just about any resolution so far.
However, there rarely are modelines for sub 640x480 modes in distros -
but thatā€™s an issue with distros rather than XFree or itā€™s drivers.

Abuse for SDL
pixel doubles everything to stretch because of this (instead of
displaying at a native res)

Sounds like a bad idea to me, unless itā€™s optionalā€¦

It is, I think. I dont have abuse installed atmā€¦ (the original abuse
iirc was a dos game and used modex directly)

And I dont use distro configs for X, I always use my own. (You know, so
stuff actually works well.) I can personally say that the matrox driver
doesnt support below 640x480 on g2xx/4xx/5xx series cards, and presumably
all of them.

320x240 was accptable once. If you are trying to get that 386 Retro
feel, you want that. (Of course, you do have to stretch to 640x480)

ā€¦unless you can get a read 320x240 mode, at least.

It
is possible, however, to write the game for a 320x240 res, and then
pixel double all the sprites and graphics and such, and then get
(basically) subpixel accurate graphics due to the fact your actually
displaying on 640x480. (Im not sure, but I heard Abuse for SDL does
that)

So does Kobo Deluxe. The graphics engine has 8 fraction bits for all
coordinates, for the motion interpolation, so itā€™s just a matter of using
them. The upcoming native OpenGL mode (without glSDL) will use all of
them, for ultra smooth animation even in lower resolutions.

Now, of course, if this was a 3D game we were talking about, res doesnt
matter.

Well, Iā€™m talking about fullscreen scrolling 2D games. (3D games arenā€™t
an issue as they need to transform everything anyway. Scaling the view to
whatever resolution is trivial.)

OpenGL is very useful for apps like that, however. (When done correctly at any
rate, except I have yet to find a game that does it right.)On 26-Sep-2002, David Olofson wrote:

On Thursday 26 September 2002 12:08, Patrick McFarland wrote:

//David Olofson - Programmer, Composer, Open Source Advocate

.- Coming soon from VaporWare Incā€¦------------------------.
| The Return of Audiality! Real, working software. Really! |
| Real time and off-line synthesis, scripting, MIDI, LGPLā€¦|
-----------------------------------> (Public Release RSN) -' .- M A I A -------------------------------------------------. | The Multimedia Application Integration Architecture |----------------------------> http://www.linuxdj.com/maia -ā€™
ā€” http://olofson.net ā€” http://www.reologica.se ā€”


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

ā€“
Patrick ā€œDiablo-D3ā€ McFarland || unknown at panax.com
"Computer games donā€™t affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, weā€™d
all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to
repetitive electronic music." --Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, Inc, 1989

In fact, I havenā€™t had any problems running 256x200 and other weird
resolutions. (Well, no problems apart form the pixels being about the
same size as the characters in my X consoleā€¦ :slight_smile:

//David Olofson - Programmer, Composer, Open Source Advocate

.- Coming soon from VaporWare Incā€¦------------------------.
| The Return of Audiality! Real, working software. Really! |
| Real time and off-line synthesis, scripting, MIDI, LGPLā€¦|
-----------------------------------> (Public Release RSN) -' .- M A I A -------------------------------------------------. | The Multimedia Application Integration Architecture |----------------------------> http://www.linuxdj.com/maia -ā€™
ā€” http://olofson.net ā€” http://www.reologica.se ā€”On Thursday 26 September 2002 16:32, DrEvil wrote:

On Thu, 2002-09-26 at 05:08, Patrick McFarland wrote:

For most linux users, anything under 640x480 isnt acceptable because
most XFree drivers dont support anything under that. Abuse for SDL
pixel doubles everything to stretch because of this (instead of
displaying at a native res)

Actually, almost any XFree driver in my experience will support 320x240
with the proper modeline in your XF86Config.

For most linux users, anything under 640x480 isnt acceptable
because most XFree drivers dont support anything under that.

I havenā€™t see one that doesnā€™t support just about any resolution so
far. However, there rarely are modelines for sub 640x480 modes in
distros - but thatā€™s an issue with distros rather than XFree or itā€™s
drivers.

Abuse for SDL
pixel doubles everything to stretch because of this (instead of
displaying at a native res)

Sounds like a bad idea to me, unless itā€™s optionalā€¦

It is, I think. I dont have abuse installed atmā€¦ (the original abuse
iirc was a dos game and used modex directly)

And I dont use distro configs for X, I always use my own. (You know, so
stuff actually works well.) I can personally say that the matrox driver
doesnt support below 640x480 on g2xx/4xx/5xx series cards, and
presumably all of them.

Thatā€™s strange. I have a G400 MAX, and it runs all sorts of insane arcade
low resolution modes just fine. Iā€™ve been playing old arcade games in
resolutions like 256x240, 192x200 and the like without problems.

Did you forget to use linedoubling or somethingā€¦? That would certainly
generate signals that a normal computer monitor wonā€™t accept. You simply
canā€™t have less than some 300 lines or so, regardless of refresh rate.

[ā€¦]

Now, of course, if this was a 3D game we were talking about, res
doesnt matter.

Well, Iā€™m talking about fullscreen scrolling 2D games. (3D games
arenā€™t an issue as they need to transform everything anyway. Scaling
the view to whatever resolution is trivial.)

OpenGL is very useful for apps like that, however.

Yes indeed.

In fact, it can even reduce tearing on machines w/o retrace sync. (Very
much brute force, but it does work. And besides, you donā€™t have to go all
that much above the video frame rate for reasonable scrolling speeds.)

(When done correctly
at any rate, except I have yet to find a game that does it right.)

Same here. I intend to implement a native OpenGL mode for the Spitfire
Engine (currently part of Kobo Deluxe), and then Iā€™ll probably get on
with the game that the engine was originally written for; Project
Spitfire. I can assure you it will be done right there.

//David Olofson - Programmer, Composer, Open Source Advocate

.- Coming soon from VaporWare Incā€¦------------------------.
| The Return of Audiality! Real, working software. Really! |
| Real time and off-line synthesis, scripting, MIDI, LGPLā€¦|
-----------------------------------> (Public Release RSN) -' .- M A I A -------------------------------------------------. | The Multimedia Application Integration Architecture |----------------------------> http://www.linuxdj.com/maia -ā€™
ā€” http://olofson.net ā€” http://www.reologica.se ā€”On Thursday 26 September 2002 14:51, Patrick McFarland wrote:

On 26-Sep-2002, David Olofson wrote:

On Thursday 26 September 2002 12:08, Patrick McFarland wrote:

For most linux users, anything under 640x480 isnt acceptable
because most XFree drivers dont support anything under that.

I havenā€™t see one that doesnā€™t support just about any resolution so
far. However, there rarely are modelines for sub 640x480 modes in
distros - but thatā€™s an issue with distros rather than XFree or itā€™s
drivers.

Abuse for SDL
pixel doubles everything to stretch because of this (instead of
displaying at a native res)

Sounds like a bad idea to me, unless itā€™s optionalā€¦

It is, I think. I dont have abuse installed atmā€¦ (the original abuse
iirc was a dos game and used modex directly)

And I dont use distro configs for X, I always use my own. (You know, so
stuff actually works well.) I can personally say that the matrox driver
doesnt support below 640x480 on g2xx/4xx/5xx series cards, and
presumably all of them.

Thatā€™s strange. I have a G400 MAX, and it runs all sorts of insane arcade
low resolution modes just fine. Iā€™ve been playing old arcade games in
resolutions like 256x240, 192x200 and the like without problems.

Er, which driver, which os? Because the driver that comes with XF4 wont
do lower than 640x480 for my G400 on Linux. mga desk (or whatever that
tool is) in combination with matroxā€™s drivers for xf4 (the ones that
come with mgahal.o) dont list below 640x480 for me as well.On 26-Sep-2002, David Olofson wrote:

On Thursday 26 September 2002 14:51, Patrick McFarland wrote:

On 26-Sep-2002, David Olofson wrote:

On Thursday 26 September 2002 12:08, Patrick McFarland wrote:

Did you forget to use linedoubling or somethingā€¦? That would certainly
generate signals that a normal computer monitor wonā€™t accept. You simply
canā€™t have less than some 300 lines or so, regardless of refresh rate.

[ā€¦]

Now, of course, if this was a 3D game we were talking about, res
doesnt matter.

Well, Iā€™m talking about fullscreen scrolling 2D games. (3D games
arenā€™t an issue as they need to transform everything anyway. Scaling
the view to whatever resolution is trivial.)

OpenGL is very useful for apps like that, however.

Yes indeed.

In fact, it can even reduce tearing on machines w/o retrace sync. (Very
much brute force, but it does work. And besides, you donā€™t have to go all
that much above the video frame rate for reasonable scrolling speeds.)

(When done correctly
at any rate, except I have yet to find a game that does it right.)

Same here. I intend to implement a native OpenGL mode for the Spitfire
Engine (currently part of Kobo Deluxe), and then Iā€™ll probably get on
with the game that the engine was originally written for; Project
Spitfire. I can assure you it will be done right there.

//David Olofson - Programmer, Composer, Open Source Advocate

.- Coming soon from VaporWare Incā€¦------------------------.
| The Return of Audiality! Real, working software. Really! |
| Real time and off-line synthesis, scripting, MIDI, LGPLā€¦|
-----------------------------------> (Public Release RSN) -' .- M A I A -------------------------------------------------. | The Multimedia Application Integration Architecture |----------------------------> http://www.linuxdj.com/maia -ā€™
ā€” http://olofson.net ā€” http://www.reologica.se ā€”


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ā€“
Patrick ā€œDiablo-D3ā€ McFarland || unknown at panax.com
"Computer games donā€™t affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, weā€™d
all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to
repetitive electronic music." --Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, Inc, 1989

ā€¦ yeah, but I can see you from a mile a way, and frag you while you still
cant even see me.On 26-Sep-2002, DrEvil wrote:

On Thu, 2002-09-26 at 05:08, Patrick McFarland wrote:

For most linux users, anything under 640x480 isnt acceptable because most
XFree drivers dont support anything under that. Abuse for SDL pixel doubles
everything to stretch because of this (instead of displaying at a native res)

Actually, almost any XFree driver in my experience will support 320x240
with the proper modeline in your XF86Config. For example, I can run
twilight in hardware accelerated OpenGL mode at 320x240 and get around
1200fps :smiley:


SDL mailing list
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ā€“
Patrick ā€œDiablo-D3ā€ McFarland || unknown at panax.com
"Computer games donā€™t affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, weā€™d
all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to
repetitive electronic music." --Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, Inc, 1989

[ā€¦]

Thatā€™s strange. I have a G400 MAX, and it runs all sorts of insane
arcade low resolution modes just fine. Iā€™ve been playing old arcade
games in resolutions like 256x240, 192x200 and the like without
problems.

Er, which driver, which os?

Some Linux 2.2.x versions, some 2.4.x versions; XFree86 3.3.3 (IIRC,
3.3.6, and at least one 4.1.x setup. Iā€™m quite sure Iā€™ve had at least
320x240 running on each combination Iā€™ve even used, and Iā€™ve had the G400
for well over a year.

Because the driver that comes with XF4 wont
do lower than 640x480 for my G400 on Linux. mga desk (or whatever that
tool is) in combination with matroxā€™s drivers for xf4 (the ones that
come with mgahal.o) dont list below 640x480 for me as well.

Strange. Iā€™m not entirely sure, but I think mine does 320x240 under Win98
as well. (Or it would be the first Win9x machine I see that wonā€™t do
320x240.) Will check, if I can manage to remember to.

Another idea: did you set your monitorā€™s min and max frequencies
properly? If you set the maximum vertical refresh rate too high, itā€™s
quite possible that the monitor will refuse, even if the horizontal
frequency is rather low.

//David Olofson - Programmer, Composer, Open Source Advocate

.- Coming soon from VaporWare Incā€¦------------------------.
| The Return of Audiality! Real, working software. Really! |
| Real time and off-line synthesis, scripting, MIDI, LGPLā€¦|
-----------------------------------> (Public Release RSN) -' .- M A I A -------------------------------------------------. | The Multimedia Application Integration Architecture |----------------------------> http://www.linuxdj.com/maia -ā€™
ā€” http://olofson.net ā€” http://www.reologica.se ā€”On Friday 27 September 2002 07:02, Patrick McFarland wrote:

Sure, but letā€™s try boomstick duelling in 800x600 with s/w rendering. :wink:

//David Olofson - Programmer, Composer, Open Source Advocate

.- Coming soon from VaporWare Incā€¦------------------------.
| The Return of Audiality! Real, working software. Really! |
| Real time and off-line synthesis, scripting, MIDI, LGPLā€¦|
-----------------------------------> (Public Release RSN) -' .- M A I A -------------------------------------------------. | The Multimedia Application Integration Architecture |----------------------------> http://www.linuxdj.com/maia -ā€™
ā€” http://olofson.net ā€” http://www.reologica.se ā€”On Friday 27 September 2002 07:17, Patrick McFarland wrote:

ā€¦ yeah, but I can see you from a mile a way, and frag you while you
still cant even see me.