Re: INFO.

[Pierre Phaneuf <pp@ludusdesign.com>]

Steve Baker wrote:

> > > Assuming you have hardware 3D accelleration, an OpenGL (Mesa)
> > > 'sprite' engine can be spectacularly fast with arbitary angle
> > > rotation effects and scaling costing *nothing*.
> >
> > If those operations would be fast enough without 3D hardware, I'd do all
> > of my 2D and 3D work with OpenGL! :-)
> 
> They aren't fast enough (well, not for anything *significant*) unless
> you have hardware 3D.

Yes, I know! Hence the "If"... :-)

> There was a survey on HappyPenguin last June that indicated that
> over 60% of Linux Gamers have a viable 3D card (3Dfx or nVidia) -
> and another 17% have 3D cards that (presumably) either aren't
> supported or don't install easily enough.  Since Precision Insight
> are now funded to implement drivers for ALL major 3D adaptors,
> we may assume that when Xfree 4.x.x appears then more than
> three quarters of your target audience has a 3D card....more
> than that actually because people are buying new cards.
> 
> So, I would not hesitate to assume hardware accelleration
> of OpenGL for the future.

Yes, even now, if I started a 3D game, I wouldn't bother with software
rendering, as by the time the game is finished, everyone that would want
that game would have a 3D card.

But for intrinsically 2D games, they can be run on very lowly hardware.
For example, Quadra on most 486 is fine, if you stay in 8 bits
PseudoColor (I use a 16 bits TrueColor visual on my 486DX4/120 without
too much trouble, only the fades between screens are very slow).

Insisting for an expensive 3D card for a game that could work on a
low-end machine with a cheapo 2D card is not a good idea IMHO!

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