Re: [U4X-Developer] libfbx fb_create_surface() thoughts

[Mike B. <nit...@sl...>]

Rob Salmond wrote:
> 
>     Just a small idea I had while browsing libfbx-surface.c.  There seems to
> be no support yet for creating an offscreen surface in video memory which is
> of course copied faster to the screen buffer.  If support for that were
> added routines could be included in vision for loading commonly used
> graphics ( gui widgets, etc ) into video memory to enhance performance.  A
> rather simple idea which would also leave more room in system memory for ...
> the system.

I was going to work on this eventually, but since it requires a virtual
screen size greater than the physical screen size, it's impossible with
vesafb, and the extent to which it can be accomplished varies based on
how much RAM the video card has.  But then, since vesafb doesn't have
acceleration anyway, we can count that out.  We'll have to calculate how
much off-screen space we can have, and then reset the framebuffer for
the new virtual size.  I was thinking that rather than add support for
video bitmaps, it would be easier to just make fb_screen have a virtual
y size that's as large as it can be.  Then, I could write an
fb_video_blit that will take source x, source y, dest x, dest y, width,
and height as parameters, and would only be available in accelerated
drivers.  The programmer would then just make a simple check to decide
whether to use video or system memory for these things.  This will also
make it easier to do page flipping, and that could get fun.  libfbx
might be useful for games by then. 




-- 
Michael Bourgeous
E-mail: nit...@sl..., nit...@u4...
Reply-to: nit...@so...

"Too many people are thinking of security instead of
 opportunity.  They seem more afraid of life than
 death."

 		-- James F. Byrnes