1. [WIN32] 2-D Graphics Engine for Win32
- Posted by ck lester <cklester at YAHOO.COM>
Nov 14, 2000
-
Last edited Nov 15, 2000
Anybody got any suggestions for a 2D graphics engine for Win32? I need a
tile engine for a game.
Thanks,
ck
P.S. If the 3-D packages (like Morfit) will do 2-D, that's fine too. Just
lemme know.
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2. Re: [WIN32] 2-D Graphics Engine for Win32
Hi ck,
If you hang on for a few weeks my Allegro wrapper should be ready.
I have wrapped about 200 routines out of about 600!!!!
If you have any questions just drop me an email.
There is a demo of what can be done with Euphoria and Allegro on the
Recent User Contributions page.
Ray Smith
smithr at ix.net.au
P.S. There was a question a week or so ago about what version of DirectX
Allegro uses, it *is* DirectX 3. (I was completely wrong when I said
I thought it was DX6!)
I don't know if this has any performance issues as I would imagine Direct X
6/7/8
can run DX3 code just as fast as code written specifically for DX6/7/8?????
----- Original Message -----
From: ck lester <cklester at YAHOO.COM>
To: <EUPHORIA at LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU>
Sent: Wednesday, November 15, 2000 2:13 PM
Subject: [WIN32] 2-D Graphics Engine for Win32
> Anybody got any suggestions for a 2D graphics engine for Win32? I need a
> tile engine for a game.
>
> Thanks,
> ck
>
> P.S. If the 3-D packages (like Morfit) will do 2-D, that's fine too. Just
> lemme know.
>
>
> _________________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
3. Re: [WIN32] 2-D Graphics Engine for Win32
On Thu, 16 Nov 2000 18:20:40 +1100, Ray & Debbie Smith <smithr at IX.NET.AU>
wrote:
>If you have any questions just drop me an email.
Looks great so far! Good job. Where do I get docs for switching modes 'n'
stuff like dat?
>Ray Smith
>smithr at ix.net.au
Oh, BTW, some of the graphics demos don't show properly... they'll have a
totally black screen with an horizontal greyish bar at the top that fades
shortly into black...
For instance, in the timer demo, the bar appears and I can barely see some
text at the top...
Thanks!
ck
4. Re: [WIN32] 2-D Graphics Engine for Win32
Ray,
Also, on the "pal" demo, the first time I ran it it said it couldn't do
it... I just ran it again and it worked!
I'm running all this on a Win2K Pro box. Haven't tried it on my Win9x
machines yet.
Thanks!!
ck
5. Re: [WIN32] 2-D Graphics Engine for Win32
Oops! I was wrong. It's the 3dbuf demo that says "Retrace sync..." ain't
available... What's up with that?!
-ck
6. Re: [WIN32] 2-D Graphics Engine for Win32
I ran the demos in Win95 and they all worked fine... so it's obviously a
Win2K issue... Or, maybe, it's my graphics card/driver?!
7. Re: [WIN32] 2-D Graphics Engine for Win32
Hi ck,
I'm very happy your interested in my Allegro Wrapper.
The version on the RDS wed site is just a demo, not a full release
so doesn't have any doco. It only conatins routines required to run
the demo programs.
The news from the Allegro mailing list is that it hasn't been tested on
WinNT or 2000, some people have mentioned some things work, and others
mention they don't. So at this stage it is really Win 9x only.
This will change in time though.
The retrace message you receive in eu3buf.exw means your video card
can't handle something. I get the same message on my work and 2 home PC's.
At this stage I haven't even look at what it means, the demo still works
though, but obviously without "some" effects.
I can't get a few of the native demos to work either because of hardware
problems so I don't know what I'll do when it comes to wrapping those
functions. I guess I'll have to buy a better graphics card (this also has
the side effect of being able to play more MAME games and running Caprice -
the cpc emulator!!!)
I am working pretty hard to wrap all the functions. I think there are
about 600-700 functions to wrap so it will still be a while before I have
finished. I'm *thinking* about maybe releasing a beta release with
just the most useful functions followed a month or two later with all
functions. I have cleaned up the original code alot and fixed a few bugs
in it already and have about 200 functions wrapped at the moment.
I'll do some more tonight and on the weekend but have a busy week next week
as the captain of a work sporting team that plays different sports every
night next week, so I probably won't get much done again until after that.
If you are interested in doco you can check out the native C documentation
and look at the Euphoria demo programs. That should be enough to get you
started.
I have the rtf version of the native doco and C examples (including exe's)
in a zip file at:
http://members.nbci.com/ray_223/sw/ called allegro_native.zip.
I *think* the final doco will just be notes on the original doco specifying
differences. The wrapper pretty closely matches the original so it
shouldn't be a hugh job. If you are interested in using euAllegro it won't
hurt a bit to read the original doco from the above zip file.
Using that native doco and the examples included there is nothing
stoping you from using it now. If you do want to do this let me
know and I'll send you the latest snapshot which includes many more
routines.
Ray Smith
On Thu, 16 Nov 2000 13:22:58 -0500, Ck Lester <cklester at YAHOO.COM> wrote:
>I ran the demos in Win95 and they all worked fine... so it's obviously a
>Win2K issue... Or, maybe, it's my graphics card/driver?!
8. Re: [WIN32] 2-D Graphics Engine for Win32
Hi,
An Update on the retrace problem with eu3buf.exw:
>The retrace message you receive in eu3buf.exw means your video card
>can't handle something. I get the same message on my work and 2 home PC's.
>At this stage I haven't even look at what it means, the demo still works
>though, but obviously without "some" effects.
Note: The C demo programs that come with Allegro (ie the ones I have
converted to Euphoria) are for all platforms that Allegro supports.
*Some* features aren't available in all platforms and the functions
request_scroll() and poll_scroll() aren't [fully?] supported under Windows.
I'll leave it in there for now, as it *might* be applicable in a Linux port.
Obviously if you are writing a program for Win9x uses only you wouldn't use
this feature / or you wouldn't show the message since many uses won't have
support for these functions.
See below for the doco from the manual.
-----------
int request_scroll(int x, int y);
This function is used for triple buffering. It requests a hardware scroll
to the specified position, but returns immediately rather than waiting for
a retrace. The scroll will then take place during the next vertical
retrace, but you can carry on running other code in the meantime and use
the poll_scroll() routine to detect when the flip has actually taken place
(see examples/ex3buf.c). Triple buffering is only possible on certain
hardware: it will work in any mode-X resolution if the timer retrace
simulator is active (but this doesn't work correctly under win95), plus it
is supported by the VBE 3.0 and VBE/AF drivers for a limited number of high-
end graphics cards. You can look at the GFX_CAN_TRIPLE_BUFFER bit in the
gfx_capabilities flag to see if it will work with the current driver.
------------
Ray Smith
