Re: Re[2]: OpenGL+GLUT the future

[John <tarquin@texas.net>]

On Wed, 19 Aug 1998, Paul Matthews wrote:

> On win32, GLUT is linked to windows. There is no reason why GLUT could
> not be linked against svgalib if you wanted to (in fact it is
> already(?)). GLUT only defines the specification, not how it's
> implemeted. Embrace and extend.

AFAIK it hasn't, but then again svgalib is hardly an acceptable choice in
terms of stability :P I've found it to be the only thing that has been
able to make me hit the reset button that is not a hardware error. Not to
mention the fact that it's keyboard handling is junk. Besides, suid root
binaries should be avoided on principle.
 
> Keyboards not the problem, the mouse is. GLUT 3.6+ added mouse support
> for these particular problems, including mouse enter and leave.

I did not mention mouse due to the fact that the DGA extension in XFree
can help work around it, albeit with some inaccuracies if the actual
screen size is not the same as the virtual screen size (errors show up
with small movements, most easily seen in xf86quake with relatively low
screen resolutions against a large virtual resolution. In other words:
move the mouse down slow, your camera tilts up. Move down quickly, camera
tilts down)
 
> > of a gui kit for OpenGL than a nice, general purpose
> > base for a game.
> Embrace and Extend ;-) The important thing is to keep it platform
> neutral.

Platform neutrality is nice, but at the cost of relinquishing control of
the main loop is a bit steep. The hacked glut that allowed the program to
choose when glut's main loop ran could help that, but I know many people
who wouldn't be happy until they recoded and absorbed the entire glut loop
after deciding on exactly which parts they want.

> > ...and it does not work outside of GLX.
> >
> There is not GLX on windows...

I wouldn't put it past them to fake it in the glut init code. Let me
rephrase that: GLUT won't work outside of GLX without a good bit of
porting. AFAIK, the main glut stuff assumes GLX is present. The exports
also seem to be quite X-centric.
 
> > Sound is the only area where one is going straight 
> > to the /dev's, and could benifit greatly from a 
> > slightly abstracted library.
> 
> Agreed. But make it platform independant, not linux only.

Well, that goes without saying. OSS comes close at the moment, but it is
still very low-level. The part of PenguinPlay I was most looking forward
to was PenguinSound.

> ==
> --
> Paul Matthews
> nudge@samba.anu.edu.au 
> _________________________________________________________
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John Allensworth --- tarquin@texas.net --- ReaperMan on the QuakeServers
Author of XtraWeapons (except the homing missile, eject, and throwing axe) 
Industrial Strength Gaming    http://www.uk.digiserve.com/whiteoak/punktc/
Real Programmers think better when playing Adventure or Rogue.