Re: SDL vs GGI

[Pierre Phaneuf <pp@ludusdesign.com>]

Christian Reiniger wrote:

> The first was that the GGI and the XFree people started to talk with each
> other again, clearing out many of the silly misunderstandings that had
> accumulated over the time and starting cooperative work, most notably on
> XFree-on-GGI (having a normal XFree run on GGI with everything that
> implies) and GGI-on-XFree (making it possible to use the XFree4 modular gfx
> drivers from GGI - for example for console graphics).
> 
> The second one was a rather big progress in adding hardware acceleration to
> more or less the existing fbcon framework, making it more likely that this
> stuff gets into the kernel.

Those two things are *very* good. Particularly if GGI can make X go even
faster (I doubt it, but I have confidence it can be at least as fast).

> I haven't read through the 545 mails that have piled up in my GGI folder
> since then, so I can't tell you about the situation now. But don't write
> off GGI. GGI is graphics access done properly. It's technically the best
> system out there.

I agree that GGI is very nicely done. The problem is that I don't need
it. I don't care for console or simulating a console in a single X
window. I want the full monty, all integrated on my desktop.

The Win32 version of Quadra has a companion application, an applet that
goes beside the Win95 clock in the taskbar, that monitors the "game
server" server and tells you when your buddies start playing Quadra on
the Internet. Then you just click the game and you're playing! That is
cool.

Then there's the case where you want to do fullscreen graphics. Ah AH!
Here we go, GGI on the console is the way to go! But maybe not:
VidMode+DGA gives me the fullscreen already (not much acceleration,
rough mode selection, but I can page flip) and the newer DGA in XFree86
3.9.x gives full mode selection power and the accelerated 2D functions
that count for a game (video-to-video blit, video-to-video blit with
colorkey and filled rectangle). The only thing missing is also probably
missing from most 2D video card on the market, video-to-video blit with
alpha.

And I can switch back to regular X very nicely, I can cut&paste just
like a real X application, I can send messages to a running Netscape to
tell it to go to my web site, I have a dockable icon in Window Maker,
just like everybody else.

-- 
Pierre Phaneuf
Ludus Design, http://ludusdesign.com/
"First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you.
Then they fight you. Then you win." -- Gandhi