[crossfire] just a comment for SDL (was RE: Release of 1.11 in a week or two)

[Olivier Huet]

Hello,


Just for SDL, there is perhaps a better chance to have hardware acceleration
with it than with OpenGL only : I don't know SDL but looking a little
sources and documentations, I think that it do try several ways to have
hardware acceleration available on hosting operating system (DirectX &
OpenGL for Windows, DGA & OpenGL on Linux + XFree86, etc.). 

For a little example, on Windows, OpenGL drivers are not always directly
installed on recent laptop with "modified for laptop" video cards : you have
to wait to have some new drivers or to use some tricks to install standard
drivers (thoses normally for non laptop but that do works perfectly with
laptops :-) ).

When I used to use Linux, there was almost never hardware OpenGL driver
available. I hope it did change now :-) but you probably have more recent
news than me on that subject.


But on the other hand, I do know a good proverb in computer science : the
less "external library" you use, the more stable your application will be
:-)
--> so regarding what you say and this proverb, it's perhaps a good idea to
remove SDL mode, in benefit to adding more functionalities in OpenGL mode
:-)



Olivier Huet
(findufin & findragon on mf)


-----Message d'origine-----
De : crossfire-bounces at metalforge.org
[mailto:crossfire-bounces at metalforge.org] De la part de Mark Wedel
Envoyé : mercredi 19 septembre 2007 06:40
À : Crossfire Discussion Mailing List
Objet : Re: [crossfire] Release of 1.11 in a week or two

Olivier Huet wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> 
> Something like a month ago, I did try some minor modifications on the
> windows gtk1 client :
> - make it compile on vs2005 (because I didn't have vs 6 installed anymore
on
> my current pc)
> - activate back the sdl support (like it is in on gtk2 client, it's only a
> macro use to add)
> 
> But I finally did not post it here when I saw that pthread and curl are
now
> needed and mandatory : I couldn't make a patch without compiling it on the
> last svn version.
> 
> (BTW I didn't tried thoses but pthread and curl do exists too on windows,
> and pthread do probably works well because it is used in at least one good
> software : the mpeg 4 (h264) decoder of PowerDVD).
> --> I don't have a lot of time these days - not sure if I can find some to
> test those libraries.
> 
> 
> And still regarding pthread and curl, they looks mandatory now (not always
> bracketed in #ifdef). 
> --> Is it normal ?

  It shouldn't be.  It's possible that a few things or other changes were 
outside of #ifdefs.  For both client & server, having curl shouldn't be a 
requirement.

  Having pthread, at least for client, may be, as even for metaserver1
support, 
it now uses pthread to get the data from the server in its own thread.

  pthread may get used for more stuff - threading the client is an
interesting 
idea (one thread to deal with drawing, another for socket) - in this way,
GUI is 
always snappy, and the number of locks needed to make this happen actually
isn't 
that many.

> 
> 
> And I don't know if anyone else did test the gtk2 client on windows but
> personally, the last I did try is something like the 6881 in svn's trunk :
> just before the integration of glade lib. It was on a version I did
compile
> with the MinGW. It was working very well and fast with OpenGL.
> 
> 
> In addition, I forgot to ask here or on bug reports, but on SDL client
(both
> gtk 1 and gtk 2 - windows versions), when you click somewhere on the
ground,
> SDL do probably catch the focus instead of gtk : after, you can't use any
> key before you switch to another application and go back to the cf client.
> --> is it only in SDL's version in windows, or is it the same on linux or
> other OS ?

  Haven't tried, but see comment about SDL map support getting removed in
other 
message.  While I know there is always desire to have as many options as 
available, as the person that has done considerable work with SDL and opengl
for 
drawing logic, opengl seems a much better solution (it seems to provide many

more acceleration options than SDL.  For example, if at some point we move 
lighting effects to the client, opengl has interfaces for that.  For SDL,
we'd 
need to write our own lighting routines)

  Now I realize that everyone may not have working opengl, etc, but for
those 
people, pixmap mode is still there.

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