Re: [pygame] More DirectX related problems

[Brian Fisher <brian@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I agree with going with windib as default. I may be wrong, but I think directx backend is inferior if you are not using HWSURFACE.

I suppose the best mix would be to use directx if and only if using HWSURFACE, but it's too late by the time the display mode is set to make that call on the backend.

On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 3:34 PM, Lenard Lindstrom <len-l@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I just had personal confirmation that SDL, maybe with the help of Pygame, does have DirectX issues. After repeated runs of surfarray_test.py and related programs my antiquated system(*) reached the point that a simple pygame.init() call would segfault. I confirmed it was DirectX by changing the video driver to windib. That worked. And to further confirm it was a corrupted DirectX and not Python I tried the dxdiag.exe video tests. They failed. Only a system reboot cleared the problem. At that point I also confirmed that non of the other programs I was using depended on DirectX. Only Python/Pygame caused ddraw.dll and dsound.dll to be loaded and kept alive by that suspicious ddhelp.exe character. Apparently DirectX has a memory.

So what to do. Maybe it is time to defer to the judgment of the SDL developers and just let windib be the default Windows video driver. The documentation can suggest that anyone experiencing performance problems try directx.

Lenard


(*) Windows 98, DirectX 8.0 (And no, I don't want to see what DX 9 or higher will do for me. It would probably break something).

--
Lenard Lindstrom
<len-l@xxxxxxxxx>