Re: [Freedos-32-dev] tar ball for download.

[Darran K. <che...@oz...>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "luca abeni" <l_...@ho...>
To: <fre...@li...>
Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2001 12:59 AM
Subject: Re: [Freedos-32-dev] tar ball for download.


> Hi Darran,
> I have been a little ``latitant'' (does this word exist in english?),
> but now I am back... (unfortunately, the Easter Holidays finished also
> here in italy :)
> In other words, sorry for the late response.
>
That's cool...

> For what concerns the video driver, yes, you are right, we don't have
> any code for accessing the video. We just have some text-mode write,
> scroll and clear functions from OSLib, but we still need drivers for
> graphic modes or advanced text mode (I feel that the OSLib
> functions are quite slow, but I may be wrong).
>
> Hence, you are welcome to contribute a video driver. BTW, which
> kind of video standard are you planning to support? In my
> impression, standard VGA modes are quite old (and low-res),
> whereas VESA is not going to be supported anymore (if I
> correctly understand the market trend). Some years ago I wrote
> a small driver for S3 cards, but it only supports Trio64 and
> similar, that are now obsolete. Does some other hardware
> standard exist? (DirectX? OpenGL? ...?)
> Wops... I am sorry, I am asking too much questions...
>
First of all, standard VGA (modes 03h, 11h, 12h, 13h), then VESA2, and then
custom drivers for different HW, (based on VESA2 or svgalib calls) all of
which will directly interface the HW, (except VESA2 which will use the PM
VESA BIOS).
As for OpenGL, why can't we use the mesa3d library to supply OpenGL. I know
it will take some modifying, but still it will give some boost to the
viability of FD32. I don't encourage DirectX, unless we are going to support
a full windows environment.

BTW, following the Market Trend, there are only 3 main video manufactures
left, ATI, Matrox and Nvidia. ATI and Matrox openly publish the chips specs,
but Nvidia doesn't. The only standards left for video are DirectX and OpenGL
(abilt only for 3D accel). The only other non-commercial supported standard
is the svgalib frame buffer support from linux. (I won't talk X11 here, this
is a different beast).
Any comments on this one?
For 2D: Use svgalib or VESA calls...
and 3D, well of only choice is OpenGL, through mesa3d or custom interface...
(I vote for mesa3d)

> Finally, for what concerns the CVS tarball, I see that Salvo is going
> to do something about it. Otherwise, I can manage to create a
> ``dayly CVS snapshot'', and to put it on my server.

I've already noticed the tar-ball on the site, and it works great. It was
just an idea to try and get other people involved, ie they can get all the
source in one hit, and play with off-line, hopefully arrousing interest...

Darran