Re: OpenGL vs. SDL for 2D

[Mark Collins <me@thisisnurgle.org.uk>]

On Wednesday 27 February 2002 3:15 pm, you wrote:

> I am using an MMX alpha blending routine with DirectX/SDL, but I can only
> imagine the speed of massively parallel 3D hardware.

I don't think you'd get much improvement using 3D accelerators for what can 
be done using SIMD instructions, as long as your pack your datatype 
efficiently, and if the alpha-blending is all you need from the accelerator, 
I wouldn't bother using one. It cuts out a portion of the market, see?

AFAIK, GCC doesn't auto-vectorize (yet - I met the guy who was being paid by 
SuSE to do it), and the Linux version of VectorC isn't out yet, so you'll 
need to do it manually, or nab the source from the Codeplay website 
(http://www.codeplay.com) for the demo (or use the benchmark snippets) as a 
reference.

IIRC, SIMD operations for blending textures is still faster than using the 
gfx cards, as long as your data is in a decent format.  

> Thanks for your comments and suggestions.

-- 
===
Mark 'Nurgle' Collins
Lead Author - Linux Game Programming (Premiere Press)
Author - Advanced AI Game Development (WordWare)
Email: me@thisisnurgle.org.uk	Phone: +44 7761 774 152
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