Re: [Plib-users] PUI Performance Factors

[Steve B. <sjb...@ai...>]

dave wrote:
 
> Steve Baker said something about PUI being high performance because it
> runs directly on openGL and thus will render directly on 3DFX cards...

Not *just* 3Dfx - any 3D hardware that supports OpenGL.

There is a particular benefit to users of early 3Dfx hardware because
the old Voodoo-1 and -2 couldn't render 3D graphics into a window.  Instead,
they switched off the 2D graphics and rendered full-screen 3D only.  That
meant that it was actually *impossible* to use standard window system
commands to render a GUI - so PUI was the *only* solution.

That situation has eased greatly because those old cards are pretty much
obsolete nowadays...but when you actually *want* your GUI widgets to overlay
the 3D window, PUI still has a place.

One rather nice spin-off of that is that this makes PUI itself very
portable.  With most modern GUI toolkits, you can write portable
applications with the toolkit - but porting the toolkit itself to a
different OS has been nightmareish (you should see the hassles they
have with GTK under Windoze).  But PUI ports onto anything that
supports OpenGL - pretty much without change.

> (whereas presumably traditional GUI
> frameworks may lag behind). I think the main point is that performance
> is vastly better.

In the context where you need a GUI in the same window as the 3D imagery...yes.
 
> I had not realized all these factors via my first cursory look at PUI.
> Now Steve has belatedly  piqued my interest in PUI.
> 
> My first comment is that looking at the PUI page and John Fay's intro,
> etc etc, these factors
> don't leap out at me from the text. Perhaps they are obvious those who
> are experienced in openGL.

Good point. I'll add a paragraph to that effect to the PUI 'front page'.

----------------------------- Steve Baker -------------------------------
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