Re: [PyOpenGL-Users] My PyOpenGL problems

[Jan E. <ch...@in...>]

On Sat, 17 Nov 2001, Richard Jones wrote:

>On Thu, 15 Nov 2001 18:17, Jan Ekholm wrote:
>> The surfaces work ok now, I got pyopengl installed ok and even hw
>> acceleration working on my ancient Matrox G450.
>
>Hey, I'm running a G400, which I hardly consider ancient :)

I have a G200 at home, and that one sure is ancient. It would be fun to
ttest with some really new card, such as some top notch GForce3

>> I must say that the speed
>> is pretty impressive too, so pyopengl seems like a very good thing.
>
>Yes - I'm hitting slowdowns, and I'd like to figure out if it's because I'm 
>either:
>  1. doing too much Python
>  2. overloading the G400 with draw commands.

It also seems to matter a great deal what you do. I experimented with
various ways to apply textures, and when using GL_DECAL things slowed down
to a crawl. It was one single texture used as a background for the scene.
GL_MODULATE and GL_REPLACE was at least 10x faster. Either that mode is
terribly slow to do, or it just isn't accelerated at all in the Matrox
drivers.

I'd say that less Python is always better, but tweaking and OpenGL app for
performnce is a nvere-ending task. There's always something more that can
be done.

>> 	http://www.infa.abo.fi/~chakie/cm/snapshot14.jpg
>
>How are you taking the screenshots?

ksnapshot. I suppose any app would do (xv, display etc), but I just like
that one.

>> It's just a brutally simple terrain "engine" that does nothing useful, but
>> after all started working it sure was fun to develop. :)
>
>I'm also working on a terrain engine, though mine is for an arcade-style 
>game, so I'm not sure we could usefully share code. It works from two bitmaps 
>- a height map and double-resolution colour map. It needs a lot of work :)

Is there any chance I could have a peek anyway? Or at least a shot or two?
I'm always interested in learning from others. The heightmap approach is
probably a very common one, I use it myself. Is your terrain textured,
colored or both?

-- 

              Many an ancient lord's last words had been:
         "You can't kill me because I've got magic aaargh...."
                                      -- Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times