1. Neil ain't so bad afterall...some explanation still needed
Well here I am, trying to use Neil, believe it or not. And (I'm a little =
suprised :) it doesn't seem to be so hard to understand afterall as =
everybody told and as it seemed at first look. Alltought Truecolr is =
very easy to use, this isn't hard either :)
Neil supports things like changing 24-bit color values automaticly to =
ex. 8-bit ones, and this saves my time, since I was just about to build =
my own translators.
There are few things that are needing tought some explanation...
1. How does mode X, vesa, and gfx modes differ from each others? =
Deltailed explanation, including working with different kinds of =
videocards/machines, needed.
2. are 32-bit color dephts still same than 24-bit ones?
I saw somewhere how Neil does linear banking:
24-bit was something like: BBBBBBBB GGGGGGGG RRRRRRRR
32-bit was smthng like: BBBBBBBB GGGGGGGG RRRRRRRR XXXXXXXX=20
where X was unused
3.I've read neil.faq and neil.doc .... is there something else important =
I should know before adding Neil in my programs?=20
--Tapani
2. Re: Neil ain't so bad afterall...some explanation still needed
>
> There are few things that are needing tought some explanation...
> 1. How does mode X, vesa, and gfx modes differ from each others?
> Deltailed explanation, including working with different kinds of
> videocards/machines, needed.
Mode X should work with any VGA-compatible card, and *most* monitors.
Mode X is actually 320x200 mode 19, but with the video registers
reprogrammed with different timings to generate different resolutions.
Some older monitors do not support certain vertical frequencies and may
either blank or whine at you, or display a rolling screen. Newer
multi-syncing monitors should not have this problem. Mode X also switches
the memory layout to a planar addressing, so that the number of pixels on
the screen can be up to quadruple the amount in mode 19. A special method
of switching the registers is necessary to select the planes, and
modex_blit was written for this task.
Vesa modes are available to most super-vga cards, adding higher
resolutions than vga and hi-color(15,16bit) and true-color(24,32). Some
cards allow access to video ram through the A0000 memory segment, using an
interrupt to select which bank of ram to access. Newer cards support
mapping the whole of video memory to somewhere else in memory so it can be
accessed linearly, hence the name linear frame buffer. Banked_blit
handles banked vesa modes, and the regular blit is used for linear.
Neil also handles regular mode 19, and offers two other tweaked modes
similar to mode x, but without the yucky planar stuff. They are 256x256
resolution and 256x240 (SNES) modes. These are all addressed linearly.
> 2. are 32-bit color dephts still same than 24-bit ones?
> I saw somewhere how Neil does linear banking:
> 24-bit was something like: BBBBBBBB GGGGGGGG RRRRRRRR
> 32-bit was smthng like: BBBBBBBB GGGGGGGG RRRRRRRR XXXXXXXX
> where X was unused
Right. 32 and 24 bit modes are effectively the same. 32-bit is somewhat
faster than 24-bit, due to pixel being aligned on a 4-byte boundary.
24-bit does save space though. And most video cards I've seen only
support one or the other. It is not strictly necessary to know this to
use the library btw.
> 3.I've read neil.faq and neil.doc .... is there something else important
> I should know before adding Neil in my programs?
You need to know that Neil is free, and written in someone's spare time to
benefit other Euphoria programmers. There are also other libraries
available, such as Hawke''s TrueColor lib (originally Chris Street's), or
Mic's Mode19 lib, and can't forget Hollow Horse's mode19 lib too. Other
libraries may be easier to use or even faster in some cases (where's your
benchmarks, Hawke'?) but Neil offers the most features as far as I've
seen.
> --Tapani
Regards,
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3. Re: Neil ain't so bad afterall...some explanation still needed
- Posted by Talvitie <smtoa at SAUNALAHTI.FI>
May 03, 1999
-
Last edited May 04, 1999
Thanks, Pete. This helps me continuing my work.
--Tapani
btw, Someone claimed some time ago, that Neil is faster (dunno how much) =
than TrueColor. I don't know how's it now. Another thing I don't wanna =
do is to say something negative 'bout TrueColor. I really did hope few =
years ago(when I was somewhat not-so-advanced coder) that I would have =
such a graphics library(supports truecolor modes and is extremely easy =
to use and still pretty fast :) Now it just seems that Neil is my choise =
:)
4. Re: Neil ain't so bad afterall...some explanation still needed
Pete Wrote:
>You need to know that Neil is free, and written in someone's spare time to
>benefit other Euphoria programmers. There are also other libraries
>available, such as Hawke''s TrueColor lib (originally Chris Street's), or
>Mic's Mode19 lib, and can't forget Hollow Horse's mode19 lib too. Other
>libraries may be easier to use or even faster in some cases (where's your
>benchmarks, Hawke'?) but Neil offers the most features as far as I've seen.
none are needed Pete :)
I've said at least a dozen times, on this listserv, in public, that Neil *is*
capable of faster truecolor mode displaying than TrueEU...
at least on the vid cards I have access to.
it really shines, btw, when you ensure vesa2.0 compliance (like,
with univbe) and you begin accessing the linear modes that
TrueEU cannot (yet)...
as Talvitie (sp?) said, he was looking for a well documented,
very easy to use, truecolor mode library that had respectable
speed, and that is exactly why i wrote TrueEU in the first place...
Neil, in it's latest incarnation, may be easier to use now, as
I have not played with it for 2 or 3 updates...
I don't think i can eek out much more speed from TrueEU
but I've been toying with the idea of taking both libraries
and using the best of each to make the EU truecolor mode
issue a thing of the past... a library that is simply the fastest,
yet retains ease of use (assuredly), is well documented,
and has all the fun features everyone wants like virtual
screens, targa, jpg, easy mode switching, circles, polygons,
arcs, fills, scaling, textures, triangles,mouse stuff...
my only problem lies in time factors...
i'm working a lot of overtime, trying to build a house, keep
up with my 19 month old daughter and i want to "finish"
EUServer first...
coding time is just so very limited for me right now...
I believe I can/could do a good job of coding "TruNeil"
if i can ever get a chance to tinker :)
--Hawke'
