Allegro 4.1.18 WIP

Allegro 4.1.18 WIP

tobing

Member #5,213

November 2004

The use is to have a simple means to debug into allegro functions, to apply analysis tools form within the MS IDE, and to apply changes to the source code, compile them and continue work. That way it is MUCH simpler than doing things on the command line.

The reason I didn't try to build the libraries from scratch, using only the MSVC workspace. The make from scratch also build the runner.exe (I don't know if that would be necessary), and also creates some header file(s) - I didn't go into all detail here. The point is, it would require one project file for each intermediate target, and that would make it more complicate to include all that stuff into one's game workspace.

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Paul Pridham

Member #250

April 2000

I'm having problems rendering a windowed video bitmap with the MSVC build of 4.1.18, under Windows...

Basically, I create 2 video bitmaps, one a back buffer and one a screen buffer. After I call show_video_bitmap() and start updating, the window doesn't update unless I drag it around with the mouse. This example worked previously with 4.0.3, but I experienced the same problem with 4.1.17.

Colour depth is 16-bit (though changing it makes no difference). Switching to memory bitmaps works fine.

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<:=
The Sword of Fargoal -- Saucelifter -- www.saucelifter.com

Evert

Member #794

November 2000

Hmm... can you reproduce the problem with Allegro's exupdate example?
If not, can you send me your test program so that I can check this out?

Paul Pridham

Member #250

April 2000

I just tried exupdate, and the problem doesn't show up. However, there's no video double-buffered mode, so maybe that's the problem. Anyway, attached is a project that exhibits the symptoms.

EDIT: Later...

For fun, I tried page flipping, and it works:

  if(is_video_buffer)
  {
    BITMAP *temp;
    temp=screen_buffer;
    screen_buffer=back_buffer;
    back_buffer=temp;
    show_video_bitmap(screen_buffer);
  }

Seems that the problem is with double buffering:

  blit(back_buffer, screen_buffer, 0, 0, 0, 0, SCREEN_W, SCREEN_H);

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<:=
The Sword of Fargoal -- Saucelifter -- www.saucelifter.com

Evert

Member #794

November 2000

Have you checked that the GFX_HW_VRAM bit in gfx_capabiliteis is set?
Anyway, I'll see if I can reproduce the problem with the programme you atatched.

Paul Pridham

Member #250

April 2000

Yes, gfx_capabilities&GFX_HW_VRAM_BLIT is true.

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<:=
The Sword of Fargoal -- Saucelifter -- www.saucelifter.com

Victor Williams Stafusa da Silva

Member #4,212

January 2004

I've modified the allegro 4.1.17 sources and recompiled it to add some features, I will upgrade it to 4.1.18.

But, how can I submit my modifications?

[The attack of the space bugs - Speedhack 2005] [Rambananas - Speedhack 2006] [Make clean - Speedhack 2009] [The source god - TINS 2010]

Evert

Member #794

November 2000

Post here (start a new thread), or send them to the mailing list if you think they're worth including (and if they still can be).
What sort of enhancements did you make?

(Hmm... still need to check the problem Paul posted about too :-[ )

Elias

Member #358

May 2000

About Paul's problem, I didn't find time to test as well - but out of wild speculations, it may be a problem with the way allegro creates a directx flipping chain out of the bitmaps. And directx may not be happy with blitting one surface onto another in the same flipping chain. (And a better solution to blitting one vram page to another would be to allow disabling of vsync and then use normal page flipping. Not sure I'll find time to add this to the directx port though - but we should think about such things for the new gfx api..)

--
"Either help out or stop whining" - Evert