Re: [Alephmodular-devel] MacOS X 10.1 users?

[Br'fin <br...@ma...>]

On Monday, January 13, 2003, at 09:17  PM, Woody Zenfell, III wrote:

> On Monday, January 13, 2003, at 06:29  PM, Br'fin wrote:
>
>> It's all part of the same problem. AM doesn't yet have any code to 
>> tell OSX 'Update the screen NOW' So AM changes the window buffer and 
>> OSX updates the window at some point where system events are being 
>> processed.
>
> Aha, so when AM is busy horking the processor continuously in hi-res 
> mode for its rendering, the system hardly ever gets to step in and 
> blit results to the screen.  (Does lo-res drawing somehow bypass this 
> mechanism?  It seems to not suffer from this restriction, and also 
> tends to "tear", both of which suggest that it might?)

lo-res doesn't bypass it. But by being less strain on the processer 
(render postage stamp, then custom blit to window buffer) instead of 
(render 640x480, then copy to window buffer) the window server just 
might get more chances. By tear, if you mean white bite occasionally 
between polygons, I see some of that even in high rez, might just be 
more noticable in low res since the resolution is so much less and 
white spots become more noticable.

>> I haven't addressed the issue because one of the areas I really want 
>> to redo things involves the management of the buffers AM draws into. 
>> A display module if you will, that on the platform specific side 
>> could do things like 'use this window's back buffer' or 'Go full 
>> screen (and use the DisplaySprocket unbuffered buffers)'
>
> Ah but surely you mean (by telling SDL to SetVideoMode to a 
> full-screen mode with page-flipping), or something like that.  ;)

That is certainly the SDL implementation of the display module.

I honestly can't be as harsh on SDL as a generic display library as 
opposed to a generalrized UI element. I don't know Windows' API here, 
or SDL's, or even OSX's.

On the other hand, treating SDL as a separate platform helps keep the 
display module's interface cleaner with fewer includes across 
everything.(ADisplayModule.h doesn't #include SDL, but the file that 
implements the SDL functionality for ADisplayModule.h can include 
whatever SDL headers it wants)

-Jeremy Parsons