Frequently asked questions (FAQ)
Contents
Trivial problems
The giftware licence
The Allegro licence is absolutely clear unless you are a lawyer.
However, it's written quite informally so this mini-FAQ tries to clarify
some things.
DJGPP problems
DOS problems
Windows problems
Unix problems
General problems
- I'm trying to compile the grabber, but it doesn't work!
- When I compile Allegro, make fails with something like `Error: operands given don't match any known 386 instruction' or `Error: no such instruction `maskmovq %mm3, %mm1''.
- Can I use Allegro with my <foobar> compiler?
- What is this "Allegro WIP" that I see people talking about?
- I got the WIP patch, but I can't apply it.
- When I run the demo game, it says it can't find demo.dat.
- How can I display several different images at the same time? When I show the second one it messes up the palette for the first.
- How can I convert my graphics to all use the same 256 color palette?
- My colors always come out wrong. And how can I make a greyscale palette with 256 different shades?
- Why do I have a funny color border at the edges of my monitor?
- How can I fade the screen in a truecolor graphics mode?
- I tried using fade_in() and fade_out() with truecolor modes but nothing happened. What am I doing wrong?
- How can I generate FLI or FLC format animations?
- How can I make parts of my sprite transparent in truecolor modes? I don't understand what the docs mean by "bright pink"...
- I can't get the 3D polygon functions to work!
- I can't get the rotate_sprite() function to work!
- I can't get the d_bitmap_proc() or d_icon_proc() GUI object to work!
- Should I use regular bitmaps, RLE sprites, or compiled sprites?
- How can I make my game run at the same speed on any computer?
- How can I take a screenshot of my Allegro program?
- How can I generate a random number?
- Why not make a "lite" version of Allegro? I don't need any of the sound, maths, or GUI routines...
- Will you ever add support for 3D accelerator hardware?
- Why not add a MOD playing function?
- Why not add networking support?
- Why can't Allegro read GIF files?
- My program crashes all the time. Could this be a bug in Allegro?
- Can I use Allegro in my <whatever> commercial application?
- When will <foobar> be finished? I can't wait...
- Where can I get some fonts to use with Allegro?
- Where can I find a set of instrument samples for the DIGMID driver?
- How can I convert the documentation into Windows Help format?
- How can I print out the documentation?
- Where can I find example source code, add-on packages, and tutorials?
- Why is it considered good coding practice to define PI as a constant, rather than just using the value 3.141592 in my code?
- Why doesn't vsync() seem to work?
- Why doesn't busy waiting on the key array work? For example, "while (!key[KEY_ENTER]);" doesn't work.
- I get lots of errors when I try to compile my C++ Allegro program.
- I'm still confused. Where can I get help?
