Re: Tools

[Pierre Phaneuf <pp@ludusdesign.com>]

Steve Baker wrote:

> > Yes, but I didn't properly word that... The colors seems "dull". It's
> > cool when you're just coming from software rendering, but if you compare
> > nVidia output and 3Dfx output, you'll see the difference immediately.
> 
> Dull?  Hmmm - that could still be incorrect gamma correction.  Have you
> actually tweaked the Voodoo's gamma settings?

I'm not totally complaining here. I'm saying that a card costing twice
as much does deliver an improvement over a 3Dfx, and thus that the "very
best card for Quake3" would rather be something from nVidia. But I
believe that the bang for the buck of the Voodoo serie is incredibly
good, and this is the card I recommend to people.

> > You mean synchronous sound?
> 
> I'm not quite sure what you mean by that.  I mean that I don't have
> a separate thread and that there is an absolute minimum of delay
> between the game stimulus and the commencement of the audio...and it
> doesn't skip or lag unless the graphic frame rate gets suddenly
> very bad.

Yes, by polling the DSP device with SNDCTL_DSP_GETOSPACE (or maybe also
by using select()/poll() on the device). Thanks to Dave Taylor and Dave
Kirsch!

> > No, at the quality you're mixing, no way that would be useful! But
> > Quadra mixes up to 8 samples at an output rate of 44.1 KHz, at 16 bit,
> > in stereo. The input samples are of various rate and it also supports
> > pitch, volume and panning effects.
> 
> I can do that too - although it seems somewhat overkill.
> 
> I havn't tried winding the numbers up that high - but there are only
> a couple of factors of two there - it's still not going to be over
> one or two percent.

No, very little usage. I'm amazed many up-to-date games still use a
separate sound process.

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