Speedier sprites

[Alcionei_Estevam_Jr]

Stanley,
Try build the library Im your local environment but use this DLLS:
http://www.libsdl.org/projects/SDL_image/release/SDL_image-1.2.3-win32.zip.
It seems a GCC bug.
With me work fine in cygwin.

Alcionei Estevam Jr.Em 12 Mar 2003, sdl at libsdl.org escreveu:

On Wednesday 12 March 2003 18.23, Stanley Brown wrote:

David Olofson wrote:

On Wednesday 12 March 2003 17.00, Stanley Brown wrote:

The fact that people can tell the difference between 30, 60,
and 100 fps in a game indicates that 24 fps is not always fine.

Agreed. But 24 FPS isnt horrible though for some games. If you
refresh at 100 fps and you only have 5 unique frames displayed in
that time it will look exactly the same at 20 fps. The more
unique frames you need displayed the higher your refresh rate
needs to be.

Yeah, but that’s not the big issue here. The real problems are
with scrolling and sprite movement; not animation.

Scrolling and sprite movement, which are both forms of animation,
produce unique frames.

Well, yes, but if we’re talking about “5 unique frames”, it sounds a
lot more like “sprite image animation” than movement to me - and I
have a hard time seeing how it could happen for more than brief
moments in a scrolling game.

At least, very few enemies in Kobo Deluxe ever move that slow, and
scrolling is constantly at 100 pixels/s. (320x240; multiply with
scale factor.) Situations where you can’t tell 33 fps from 80 fps are
virtually nonexistent in that game.

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

.- The Return of Audiality! --------------------------------.
| Free/Open Source Audio Engine for use in Games or Studio. |
| RT and off-line synth. Scripting. Sample accurate timing. |
`-----------------------------------> http://audiality.org -’
— http://olofson.net — http://www.reologica.se —

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[Alcionei_Estevam_Jr]

Sory,
The last answer is relative to other subject.( Re: [SDL] SDL - Dev-Cpp/Win32
and SDL_image)Em 12 Mar 2003, sdl at libsdl.org escreveu:

Stanley,
Try build the library Im your local environment but use this DLLS:
http://www.libsdl.org/projects/SDL_image/release/SDL_image-1.2.3-win32.zip.
It seems a GCC bug.
With me work fine in cygwin.

Alcionei Estevam Jr.

Em 12 Mar 2003, sdl at libsdl.org escreveu:

On Wednesday 12 March 2003 18.23, Stanley Brown wrote:

David Olofson wrote:

On Wednesday 12 March 2003 17.00, Stanley Brown wrote:

The fact that people can tell the difference between 30, 60,
and 100 fps in a game indicates that 24 fps is not always fine.

Agreed. But 24 FPS isnt horrible though for some games. If you
refresh at 100 fps and you only have 5 unique frames displayed in
that time it will look exactly the same at 20 fps. The more
unique frames you need displayed the higher your refresh rate
needs to be.

Yeah, but that’s not the big issue here. The real problems are
with scrolling and sprite movement; not animation.

Scrolling and sprite movement, which are both forms of animation,
produce unique frames.

Well, yes, but if we’re talking about “5 unique frames”, it sounds a
lot more like “sprite image animation” than movement to me - and I
have a hard time seeing how it could happen for more than brief
moments in a scrolling game.

At least, very few enemies in Kobo Deluxe ever move that slow, and
scrolling is constantly at 100 pixels/s. (320x240; multiply with
scale factor.) Situations where you can’t tell 33 fps from 80 fps are
virtually nonexistent in that game.

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

.- The Return of Audiality! --------------------------------.
| Free/Open Source Audio Engine for use in Games or Studio. |
| RT and off-line synth. Scripting. Sample accurate timing. |
`-----------------------------------> http://audiality.org -’
— http://olofson.net — http://www.reologica.se —

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[Kylotan]

Anatoly R. wrote:

I wasn’t working on anything SDL related in couple of monthes, but as
far as I remember apps which were using PNGs, MP3 sound etc were
running absolutely fine on that box. And I DON’T CALL IT LOWEND (some
of you probably call P2-P3 “lowend”).

My Cyrix 233 MX certainly couldn’t run a fullscreen scrolling 2D game
using 32 bit colour at a high frame rate (40+ FPS) with an MP3 playing
in the background.

My opinion about using obsolete formats is:

Those, who still try to use BMPs and force users to use them instead
of PNGs in GAMING !ENGINES! are slowing down industry progress.

PNG is a complex format and is overkill for many things. Not to mention
that using PNG in SDL generally means adding in sdl_image, which
requires libpng, which requires zlib… 3 extra libraries. I’m not in
favour of premature optimisation, but PNG offers me almost nothing over
TGA (which is easier to code support for) or BMP (which has support
built in).

8 bit colors in 2003… OMG.

Do you mock those who use the command prompt too?

SDL isn’t ported to systems which are limited to 256 colors.
There is no SDL on GBA, SNES (LOL), GP32.

Firstly, I believe SDL is available on Windows CE, which commonly runs
on devices limited to 256 or even 16 colours. Secondly, you’re missing
the point: you get almost four times the speed using 8 bit graphics
compared to 32 bit. I have tested this with SDL, and I know this from
experience. It may not be true on your system, but in general, it is the
case.–
Kylotan
http://pages.eidosnet.co.uk/kylotan

[Anatoly_R]

Hello Kylotan,

Thursday, March 13, 2003, 9:34:27 PM, you wrote:

K> Anatoly R. wrote:

I wasn’t working on anything SDL related in couple of monthes, but as
far as I remember apps which were using PNGs, MP3 sound etc were
running absolutely fine on that box. And I DON’T CALL IT LOWEND (some
of you probably call P2-P3 “lowend”).

K> My Cyrix 233 MX certainly couldn’t run a fullscreen scrolling 2D game
K> using 32 bit colour at a high frame rate (40+ FPS) with an MP3 playing
K> in the background.

As far as I remember, Cyrix 233 was as fast as P133 without MMX
instructions. There also was another WinSomething processor… It was
even slower than Cyrix. 233 in your Cyrix is not a mhz, it’s something
like rating of processor. Then, 32bit color background? You sure are
trying to find ways to pervert everything. Which videocard do you
have?

I can start WinAMP, play 224kbps MP3s and play many good 2d games
which use DirectX (and even SDL). Not to mention, Manx TT SuperBike is
very optimised game and I’m able to play having MP3 in background.

My videocard is Matrox Millenium 4mb PCI.

My opinion about using obsolete formats is:

Those, who still try to use BMPs and force users to use them instead
of PNGs in GAMING !ENGINES! are slowing down industry progress.

K> PNG is a complex format and is overkill for many things. Not to mention
K> that using PNG in SDL generally means adding in sdl_image, which
K> requires libpng, which requires zlib… 3 extra libraries. I’m not in
K> favour of premature optimisation, but PNG offers me almost nothing over
K> TGA (which is easier to code support for) or BMP (which has support
K> built in).

Decreased size? If you want to include TGA in your code, you’ll need
to compress them for sure, thus adding some zip-like library. One
external library or 3 external libraries? There’s no difference.

8 bit colors in 2003… OMG.
K> Do you mock those who use the command prompt too?

No, I’m using command prompt too and I have couple of lowend DOS boxes
for internet browsing here and there.

SDL isn’t ported to systems which are limited to 256 colors.
There is no SDL on GBA, SNES (LOL), GP32.

K> Firstly, I believe SDL is available on Windows CE, which commonly runs
K> on devices limited to 256 or even 16 colours. Secondly, you’re missing
K> the point: you get almost four times the speed using 8 bit graphics
K> compared to 32 bit.

Your development slows down “almost four times” if you want to
implement 8bit stuff.

K> I have tested this with SDL, and I know this from experience.
K> It may not be true on your system, but in general, it is the case.

I was testing different SDL apps on dozens of computers too.
I don’t see a reason why somebody should spend huge amount of time
implementing some 8bit optimisations since it’s hard to create app
which would run fullspeed on “WindowsCE” handhelds (i’m talking about
WinCE, not PocketPC since you mentioned it) anyway. And again, you’ll
need to spend some time porting app to handheld since it requires
interface, controls etc changes.

There is no need to think about support for 8bit stuff when you start
application development for major platform. Porting to another app
will take some time anyway.–
Lynx,
http://dotNet.lv mailto:@Anatoly_R

[Kylotan]

Anatoly R. wrote:

As far as I remember, Cyrix 233 was as fast as P133 without MMX
instructions. There also was another WinSomething processor… It was
even slower than Cyrix. 233 in your Cyrix is not a mhz, it’s something
like rating of processor.

Yes, and the rating of 233 means it was roughly equivalent to an Intel
chip of 233MHz. And the Cyrix MX had MMX instructions, hence the MX.

Then, 32bit color background? You sure are
trying to find ways to pervert everything.

What are you talking about? I am just giving a common example of a type
of game where 24/32bpp is going to kill a slow system. A lot of 2D games
are going to be scrollers with a full background and therefore if it’s
possible to cut the amount of data being copied by a factor of 4, it’s
worth considering.

Which videocard do you have?

On that system, a 4MB Matrox Mystique.

I can start WinAMP, play 224kbps MP3s and play many good 2d games
which use DirectX (and even SDL).

Then you are lucky. Most people can’t do that on a 233 and expect smooth
performance. Why do you think so few companies used MP3 audio in games
back in 1998?

Decreased size? If you want to include TGA in your code, you’ll need
to compress them for sure, thus adding some zip-like library.

Or if you’re using 8-bit graphics, RLE often works wonders. I’d have to
be using a lot of graphics before the size I save by moving to PNG would
outweigh the size I save by not having to distribute 3 extra libraries.

Your development slows down “almost four times” if you want to
implement 8bit stuff.

Why should it? I’ve done games where you toggle between 8bpp and 16bpp
by only changing 1 or 2 lines of code, and the rest of the code is
identical (thanks to SDL). The only difference is that the 8bpp version
looks a little worse but runs at twice the speed.

Maybe if you want to achieve a lot of alpha effects, then your
development time will slow down. But that is just another design
decision that you have to make. If you want 32-bit graphics, your
blitting time will slow down. It’s all about the trade-offs.

There is no need to think about support for 8bit stuff when you start
application development for major platform.

Which part of Brian’s “Actually, a number of my users are using 8-bit
displays.” comment didn’t make sense? If there are users out there, then
there’s a need. No-one’s forcing you to accommodate them if you don’t
want to, but there are several good reasons for still considering 8-bit
output.–
Kylotan
http://pages.eidosnet.co.uk/kylotan