Re: [Fenfire-dev] Yet another libvob API: LWJGL

[Matti Katila]

On Wed, 11 Jan 2006, Tuukka Hastrup wrote:
> On Wed, 11 Jan 2006, Matti Katila wrote:
> > I have been thinking the state of libvob. It's not adequate for the need
> > of fenfire. Fenfire needs something that is fast and allows us to build
> > non-cubic views. The speed of AWT api is not enough, e.g., with
> > scaled images. OpenGL would be the right solution for speed.
>
> In case there's appropriate hardware acceleration. Actually some OpenGL
> can be ok even with software rendering.

There are different versions of OpenGL and different extensions. All
nice shader things can not be done with smallest versions or missing
extension. But I'm sure that everything that can be done with AWT can be
done ten times faster with OpenGL.


> > Currently there's not many who can work on native gl libvob. The code is
> > portable but there's none who is willing to do the port. If a port is
> > done to different environment will there be anyone who will be the
> > maintainer?
>
> Yes, it's a good idea to use a standard interface for OpenGL, if we can
> find one suitable in the current situation.

There's JOGL(java.net) and LWJGL(used in many games), both are licenced
with BSD licence. I prefer the latter, it has "support" channel in
freenode.


> Could we make some kind of a test program to try on different bindings to
> see if they're any good?

What kind of benchmark or comparing method you suggest? If there's a
missing binding the developers were interested in to add it.
That was the impression they give me at #LWJGL.


> You know that OpenGL and the bindings are made for games and Fenfire has
> different requirements. I'm not sure - has the speed been an issue also
> with the GLAPI? It could be that a lot of stuff is written in C++ simply
> to put the line between Java and C++ in the same place as between Libvob
> use and Libvob implementation.

I's rather difficult to say whether speed becomes an issue. Like I respond
to Benja, in games there are a lot to draw but after all they can be drawn
in bigger chunks. With Fenfire there's less to draw but it has to be
done in smaller chunks. I hope we get enough time to compute coordinates
too.


   -Matti