1. Virtual Screens and stuff in True EU
I want to make one huge virtual screen ... like 2 640 screens wide and like
5 or 8 or so long...Then just access that like its a normal screen for
drawing the graphics then just blit out the section i want to see...What i
cant seam to do is get it to work... I use locked mem in windows(so it dont
get swaped out) i tried
off_screen = make_virtual_screen(1024,4800,TrueBlack)
then just coping it over to the screen but it didnt line up right
btw i uses a 320,200 screen mode to start with...not in true color.. is that
the prob or are my thoughts going down a dead end track?
Lost and confused Grape
_______________________________________________________________
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2. Re: Virtual Screens and stuff in True EU
- Posted by LEVIATHAN <lordlev at WA.FREEI.NET>
May 01, 1999
-
Last edited May 02, 1999
Grape Vine wrote:
> I want to make one huge virtual screen ... like 2 640 screens wide and like
> 5 or 8 or so long...Then just access that like its a normal screen for
> drawing the graphics then just blit out the section i want to see...What i
> cant seam to do is get it to work... I use locked mem in windows(so it dont
> get swaped out) i tried
> off_screen = make_virtual_screen(1024,4800,TrueBlack)
> then just coping it over to the screen but it didnt line up right
> btw i uses a 320,200 screen mode to start with...not in true color.. is that
> the prob or are my thoughts going down a dead end track?
>
> Lost and confused Grape
>
> _______________________________________________________________
> Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com
One thing to make sure of... Video Chipset support for Virtual screens.
S3/Virge cards DO NOT, to any of my knowedge, support virtual screens. ATI
Mach64 (ATI 3D-Pro) Chipset does support virtual screens. Any others, heck if I
should know :)
Byebye! --"LEVIATHAN"
3. Re: Virtual Screens and stuff in True EU
personally, i have found that making individual virtual screens,
each the size of the full screen, and simply setting the appropriate
virtual screen onto the display is generally faster and easier...
however, if you are attempting smoothly scrolling screens, then your
method is generally preferred...
from the meager amount of code you have given in your message,
you are doing ok so far and i think your problem is that
TrueEU is currently _only_ for 16.7M color modes...
at least the routines within the library that is...
you can mix and match video modes (for example:
the menu system might be 640x480x256 and then you
can switch into truecolor for actual gameplay and even back
into straight text modes for saving/loading games and whatnot...)
but the functions in the TrueEU library only work within the
truecolor modes...
one noteworthy exception here:
certain functions, after the library has been initialized, *can*
be accessed while in other graphic/text modes, as long as
you don't attempt to read/write to the actual screen...
you can load targas, create your virtual screens, and other
such things while in modes less that 16.7M and even show
the user progress indicators/whatnot as you prepare for
entering truecolor modes/gameplay/etc...
hope this helps--Hawke'
At 05:21 PM 5/1/99 -0700, you wrote:
>I want to make one huge virtual screen ... like 2 640 screens wide and like
>5 or 8 or so long...Then just access that like its a normal screen for
>drawing the graphics then just blit out the section i want to see...What i
>cant seam to do is get it to work... I use locked mem in windows(so it dont
>get swaped out) i tried
>off_screen = make_virtual_screen(1024,4800,TrueBlack)
>then just coping it over to the screen but it didnt line up right
>btw i uses a 320,200 screen mode to start with...not in true color.. is that
>the prob or are my thoughts going down a dead end track?
>
>Lost and confused Grape
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________________________
>Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com
>
4. Re: Virtual Screens and stuff in True EU
At 08:34 PM 5/1/99 -0700, you wrote:
>> I want to make one huge virtual screen ... like 2 640 screens wide and like
>> 5 or 8 or so long...Then just access that like its a normal screen for
>> drawing the graphics then just blit out the section i want to see...What i
>> cant seam to do is get it to work... I use locked mem in windows(so it dont
>> get swaped out) i tried
>> off_screen = make_virtual_screen(1024,4800,TrueBlack)
>> then just coping it over to the screen but it didnt line up right
>> btw i uses a 320,200 screen mode to start with...not in true color.. is
that
>> the prob or are my thoughts going down a dead end track?
>>
>> Lost and confused Grape
> One thing to make sure of... Video Chipset support for Virtual screens.
>S3/Virge cards DO NOT, to any of my knowedge, support virtual screens. ATI
>Mach64 (ATI 3D-Pro) Chipset does support virtual screens. Any others, heck
>if I should know :)
actually, since the post was about TrueEU specifically, and it's mechanism
for virtual screens, I feel it appropriate to mention a minor correction
here LEVI...
TrueEU and it's virtual screen support work on s3/virge cards rather well
actually, and work _real_ well when you use the univbe driver
to update the s3/virge cards to vesa2.0/3.0...
the speed gain with univbe on s3 cards and TrueEU is not as much
as the speed gain you get with neil and univbe combined on s3 cards,
but the gain is there...
lastly, virtual screens work on s3cards with neil (and i seem to remember
testing jiri's virtgraph library and it worked also)
hope this helps/clears things up a wee bit :)
--Hawke'
5. Re: Virtual Screens and stuff in True EU
- Posted by Grape Vine <chat_town at HOTMAIL.COM>
May 02, 1999
-
Last edited May 03, 1999
<clipo>
> One thing to make sure of... Video Chipset support for Virtual screens.
>S3/Virge cards DO NOT, to any of my knowedge, support virtual screens. ATI
>Mach64 (ATI 3D-Pro) Chipset does support virtual screens. Any others, heck
>if I
>should know :)
>
>Byebye! --"LEVIATHAN"
>
How did you know/remember i have a sh!t3 card????????????
Confused again, Grape
_______________________________________________________________
Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com
6. Re: Virtual Screens and stuff in True EU
- Posted by Grape Vine <chat_town at HOTMAIL.COM>
May 02, 1999
-
Last edited May 03, 1999
Yes it is for smooth scrolling... parallax scrolling i do beleve it is
called.. If you have played the game Solar Winds than you know what i am
after.. Nitrogen 2000 sugessted i use tile maps instead.. i think he is
right... this way i am only going to need 1 virual screen
Sorry for the lack of code.. i didnt post the real stuff.. jsut the
inportiant code of what i had...I will post full code(or at least as full as
i have) next time... I have univbe some place.. i went and got sitech
display doctor 6.2(i think this is the newest) a few months ago
but have not installed it since i got the S3 card(i had a Trident 9680
-I(windows version) and needed it.. I ~think~ i have the neil lib but not
sure... I will look at it soon
Thanx,
Grape Vine
>personally, i have found that making individual virtual screens,
>each the size of the full screen, and simply setting the appropriate
>virtual screen onto the display is generally faster and easier...
>however, if you are attempting smoothly scrolling screens, then your
>method is generally preferred...
>from the meager amount of code you have given in your message,
>you are doing ok so far and i think your problem is that
>TrueEU is currently _only_ for 16.7M color modes...
>at least the routines within the library that is...
>you can mix and match video modes (for example:
>the menu system might be 640x480x256 and then you
>can switch into truecolor for actual gameplay and even back
>into straight text modes for saving/loading games and whatnot...)
>but the functions in the TrueEU library only work within the
>truecolor modes...
>one noteworthy exception here:
>certain functions, after the library has been initialized, *can*
>be accessed while in other graphic/text modes, as long as
>you don't attempt to read/write to the actual screen...
>you can load targas, create your virtual screens, and other
>such things while in modes less that 16.7M and even show
>the user progress indicators/whatnot as you prepare for
>entering truecolor modes/gameplay/etc...
>
>hope this helps--Hawke'
>
>At 05:21 PM 5/1/99 -0700, you wrote:
> >I want to make one huge virtual screen ... like 2 640 screens wide and
>like
> >5 or 8 or so long...Then just access that like its a normal screen for
> >drawing the graphics then just blit out the section i want to see...What
>i
> >cant seam to do is get it to work... I use locked mem in windows(so it
>dont
> >get swaped out) i tried
> >off_screen = make_virtual_screen(1024,4800,TrueBlack)
> >then just coping it over to the screen but it didnt line up right
> >btw i uses a 320,200 screen mode to start with...not in true color.. is
>that
> >the prob or are my thoughts going down a dead end track?
> >
> >Lost and confused Grape
> >
> >
> >
> >_______________________________________________________________
> >Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com
> >
_______________________________________________________________
Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com
7. Re: Virtual Screens and stuff in True EU
> Yes it is for smooth scrolling... parallax scrolling i do beleve it is
> called.. If you have played the game Solar Winds than you know what i am
> after.. Nitrogen 2000 sugessted i use tile maps instead.. i think he is
> right... this way i am only going to need 1 virual screen
> Sorry for the lack of code.. i didnt post the real stuff.. jsut the
> inportiant code of what i had...I will post full code(or at least as full as
> i have) next time... I have univbe some place.. i went and got sitech
> display doctor 6.2(i think this is the newest) a few months ago
> but have not installed it since i got the S3 card(i had a Trident 9680
> -I(windows version) and needed it.. I ~think~ i have the neil lib but not
> sure... I will look at it soon
Hmm tilez vs a complete VS to scroll ?
What about the often used in-between-method ?
Store the textures as tiles. Have a virtual screen one tile larger and wider
than the normal screen.
Now you can append or prepend what you need on the Y-Axis.
However, if you only need the it scrolling horizontally, you are better off
swapping the x-y in the virtual screen. This way you
can copy whole screens without having to 'clip' or 'scroll a virtual screen
internally'
You can however, create a complete horizontal & vertical scrolling virtual
screen, when you split it up in two passes.
Say, when the screen moves down, new data is drawn from the tiles on the virtual
screen, on top off the old data that the user
can't see any more. The new upper part can copied all the way below. For this
however, you need to maintain two scroll
variables.
In this method thus, you have all the advantages. And again, if you only need
horizontal scrolling, swap the x and y
coordinates. So you don't have to clip your current scrolling part. (you could
even use two copies of a virtual screen, I wonder
what's faster. Guess it depends on the speed that you scroll, if a lot of new
tiles have to be copied twice, it might take
longer than the clipping would have took.) Some one feel like trying this ?
Ralf N.
nieuwen at xs4all.nl
8. Re: Virtual Screens and stuff in True EU
Hawke' (Mike Deland) wrote:
> > One thing to make sure of... Video Chipset support for Virtual screens.
> >S3/Virge cards DO NOT, to any of my knowedge, support virtual screens. ATI
> >Mach64 (ATI 3D-Pro) Chipset does support virtual screens. Any others, heck
> >if I should know :)
>
> actually, since the post was about TrueEU specifically, and it's mechanism
> for virtual screens, I feel it appropriate to mention a minor correction
> here LEVI...
> TrueEU and it's virtual screen support work on s3/virge cards rather well
> actually, and work _real_ well when you use the univbe driver
> to update the s3/virge cards to vesa2.0/3.0...
> the speed gain with univbe on s3 cards and TrueEU is not as much
> as the speed gain you get with neil and univbe combined on s3 cards,
> but the gain is there...
> lastly, virtual screens work on s3cards with neil (and i seem to remember
> testing jiri's virtgraph library and it worked also)
>
> hope this helps/clears things up a wee bit :)
> --Hawke'
Oh. EEEEE-nteresting. Trippy, actually, as I did my assumptions to lack of
software to do virtual screens on S3's. (My machine, and a machine at my school)
Clears up quite a bit. Virtual screens are _software_ driven, then, eh? Wow,
never
knew :)
Thanx!
Bright Blessings! --"LEVIATHAN"
