Re: [Pysdl-devel] slice operation, numpy, speed

[David C. <D. C. <si...@te...>]

Mark Baker writes:

 > No, it's not slower. It's slower for plotting a single pixel, but that's to be
 > expected. For many things, it's about 4x faster.
 > I'll put together a small benchmark of various styles, and you'll all be able
 > to see for yourself.
 > 

This is pretty clear. Slice operators are great for those drawing
operations that can be expressed in terms of x or y constants:
horizonal and vertical lines. Put_pixel is ideal for single pixel
plotting. Standard rectangular blits should be used for everything
else.

 > 
 > A command buffer for operations will most likely be a bit of work. It'd
 > probably be a bit awkward in comparison to what people are generally used to
 > as well, in order to make it efficient.
 > 
 > Before that, though, I think I'll work on some drawing primitives for the
 > existing surfaces. Circles, lines, etc. We'll see.

My feeling is that the current discussion is overemphasizing direct
pixel plotting as opposed to sprite operations and rectangular
blits. This is to be expected, since we're learning by doing the simpler
demos, which don't use sprites at all. However, I think that the
destiny of pySDL is in the sprite area - people who want arbitrary
pixel addressing based on complex math will probably always use C, and
pySDL will be used for tile-based games, such as RPGs and strategy
games. Mark's a busy guy; I'm not sure this low-level stuff is worth
his time. Comments?

-- 
David Clark
si...@te...
Preliminary pySDL Documentation
http://www3.telus.net/futility/futility/docs/pysdl/index.html