I am running the test code sample testpallete.c that comes with the SDL 1.2.7 source code. I compiled it on a debian 733 MHz with an ATI AGP 128 Pro graphics card but using the vesa driver and I only got about 25 fps. I ran it on a Windows 2000 750 MHz laptop with an integrated SIS graphics card and I got about 45 fps. Both machines are PIIIs.
First, why so slow on both of them and secondly why did the windows machine vastly outperform the linux box with only a slight difference in processing power?
I know both machines are slow compared to today’s standards but I have specific business reasons for using older hardware. And anyways, 2 or 3 years ago people were running great games on this type of hardware and I can’t even run the sample code that comes with SDL. What could be my problem???
Thanks in advance for your help and I already appreciate the many times that I have had questions answered by this mailing list’s previous postings.
Jason Hawsey---------------------------------
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Well, one thing that comes to mind for the Win2k laptop is that the reason
for the lower than usual framerate could be due to the integrated video
card, where the system and video memory are being shared. A friend of mine
had a laptop with an integrated video card, and running some applications or
games slowed his system down majorly… and he was using a P4 chip. My guess
is that there’s something going on in the background that’s taking longer
than normal to get the data to the video buffer. Of, course I could be WAY
off here. But it’s an idea.
Just out of curiosity, were any of these games built using SDL, or were they
using DirectX/OpenGL?
KevinFrom: jhawsey@yahoo.com (Jason Hawsey)
Reply-To: “A list for developers using the SDL library.
(includesSDL-announce)”
To: sdl at libsdl.org
Subject: [SDL] Bad performance
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 07:11:35 -0700 (PDT)
I am running the test code sample testpallete.c that comes with the SDL
1.2.7 source code. I compiled it on a debian 733 MHz with an ATI AGP 128
Pro graphics card but using the vesa driver and I only got about 25 fps. I
ran it on a Windows 2000 750 MHz laptop with an integrated SIS graphics card
and I got about 45 fps. Both machines are PIIIs.
First, why so slow on both of them and secondly why did the windows machine
vastly outperform the linux box with only a slight difference in processing
power?
I know both machines are slow compared to today’s standards but I have
specific business reasons for using older hardware. And anyways, 2 or 3
years ago people were running great games on this type of hardware and I
can’t even run the sample code that comes with SDL. What could be my
problem???
Thanks in advance for your help and I already appreciate the many times that
I have had questions answered by this mailing list’s previous postings.
Jason Hawsey
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I am running the test code sample testpallete.c that comes with the SDL 1.2.7 source code. I compiled it on a debian 733 MHz with an ATI AGP 128 Pro graphics card but using the vesa driver and I only got about 25 fps. I ran it on a Windows 2000 750 MHz laptop with an integrated SIS graphics card and I got about 45 fps. Both machines are PIIIs.
First, why so slow on both of them and secondly why did the windows machine vastly outperform the linux box with only a slight difference in processing power?
I know both machines are slow compared to today’s standards but I have specific business reasons for using older hardware. And anyways, 2 or 3 years ago people were running great games on this type of hardware and I can’t even run the sample code that comes with SDL. What could be my problem???
Thanks in advance for your help and I already appreciate the many times that I have had questions answered by this mailing list’s previous postings.
I don’t actually know what testpallete.c does, but in general the reason
Windows vastly outperforms Linux for 2D graphics is that by default
Windows supports hardware acceleration for 2D graphics, but Linux does not.
To get hardware acceleration in Linux you need to do one of:
-
use OpenGL and 3D graphics functions to do 2D graphics
-
use a video driver that requires root permissions, requires you to run
fullscreen, and which may well not be supported by many video cards, like
directfb or dga. You can use such drivers by setting the environment
variable SDL_VIDEODRIVER, it’s use is covered in the FAQ on the SDL
website.
JamesOn Sun, 10 Oct 2004 07:11:35 -0700, Jason Hawsey wrote:
Jason Hawsey wrote:
I am running the test code sample testpallete.c that comes with the
SDL 1.2.7 source code. I compiled it on a debian 733 MHz with an ATI
AGP 128 Pro graphics card but using the vesa driver and I only got
about 25 fps. I ran it on a Windows 2000 750 MHz laptop with an
integrated SIS graphics card and I got about 45 fps. Both machines
are PIIIs.
First, why so slow on both of them and secondly why did the windows
machine vastly outperform the linux box with only a slight difference
in processing power?
I know both machines are slow compared to today’s standards but I have
specific business reasons for using older hardware. And anyways, 2 or
3 years ago people were running great games on this type of hardware
and I can’t even run the sample code that comes with SDL. What could
be my problem???
You compare apples with oranges (two different cpus, two different video
cards, two different OS).
If you want to do a relevant comparison, try to change just one
parameter between the tests (for example just change the OS, which is
the relevant part here).
That said, SDL doesn’t use acceleration under x11. So that can explain
the speed differences you see.
Stephane