Virtual Screen on Mac/Pandora not working

[spacefractal]

is im remember and sooner and later should look into this one, virtual screen does not working currectly.

This thread is just a reminder, since this issue might have been gone due forum crash.

For me this should been the most important bug for those platforms to get fixed.

PS. Im have no plans to remove Pandora support at all. So dont worry.

Currectly only OS-X_Uni, WebOS and Palm-Pixi would been removed, eventuelly moved as a seperate download. There is other minor platforms, but thier compiler is does not clutter very much at all.

[erico]

Yep, +1 here on all that you said.
I may be able to try help the issue out, I´m just a bit lost on how exactly.
I don´t know enough low level coding and I still could not form a linux and osx system to give it a boot

[spacefractal]

Im did liked WebOS, but no reason to support a OS like this, when most devices used it have been converted to Android anyway. But even those does really not clutter to much and could been moved to a seperate download rather than remove.

But Virtual Screen should been the most important bug for Gernot to fix. There is also Vsync issue for Mac as well (its was fixable in v10), but this bug is much more important really. Vsync is something im could look on somewhere.

PS. Im do recommered to not use virtual screen, due framerate falled too much, and better to support any screen ratio without black borders. So im did newer used it in any of my game. Im did confirmed by Ian CatchOut worked nice on his Pandora (compiled with newest version), im just forgot all about it.

[erico]

I understand the reasons to avoid virtual screen and how things should be coded with all the other features.
My primary reason for it is real native resolution, on the code.

Let me try to explain, when I do a 320x240 game or lower resolution(and I will do lower), I expect that as the native screen.
Whatever real state screen on a newer high res device, I still want to move my stuff on the 1 pixel of the original lower res, not the device´s res.

I could code around it, but it would be a lot of work, while using virtual screen, that is done by nature.

[Ian Price]

Yeah, there are many reasons to use a virtual screen, without the need to use delta timings or float based movement and map positioning etc.

While Virtual screens can have an impact on the FPS, the effect doesn't have to be or may not be dramatic, depending on the device.

It's just another tool in the belt - not everyone will use it and it can't be used for every project, but it's very useful to have. Just because someone repeatedly says they don't like it or won't use it, it doesn't mean that you can't or shouldn't. Just be aware of the potential problems you can have with it and that it doesn't work at all on certain devices with certain versions of GLB.

[spacefractal]

Catchout do have chunky mode (balls moving in 1x1 pixels) and does not use virtual screen. Im COULD have use virtual screen for that game without issue, but diddent do that, so im could have full use of the user screen more correctly.

The real issue this time, was so im could calculate where the game would place the scoring/level status: Either top/bottom or left/right. Those are really placed outside the playarea used.

Also another issue with virtual screen is its dosent like alpha that much its seen (alpha multiply issues im got a lots in Greedy Mouse). But most retro games newer have this issue anyway.

PS. This is >still< the most important bug, then glbasic would pretty much perfectly (dispite few quicks). Im just dedicated not to use it, but its DO have its nice use.

[Kitty Hello]

I once had a look at the changes in the pandora core... i coundn't find the change. Maybe we need some sort of a gl debugger to see the different gl calls. Might be the display format has changed...

[Ian Price]

IMHO It's not a Pandora issue - it's GLBasic. Virtual screens work well in V10.XX and below. V11+ broke them.

Obviously this affects the Mac too, otherwise I'd say it wasn't worth worrying about. There are very few GLB Pandora devs and the Pandora is about to be replaced by the Pyra anyway (although it is likely that the Pyra will be compatible and run GLB stuff anyway).

[spacefractal]

Mac is a more important platform than Pandora, but share the same issue. Im confirmed it some time ago (not sure when).

Im guess the bug is in openglrainbows.cpp.

Im do should do a little test on v10 as well for compare on my Mac. But im do want a compiled game using it, compiled both with v10 and v12 so im can check it or.

Ian, can you compile your aqua game compiled both v10 and v12 for Mac, so im can compare what its really happens. No source code needed at all.

[Ian Price]

Obviously Mac is more important - that's why I said " otherwise I'd say it wasn't worth worrying about."

I'll have a look later at compiling AV for Mac.

[Kitty Hello]

It's either in creation of the framebuffer or the gl initialization. (Depth, stencil, bit depth...)
Maybe it came with the introduction of the z-buffer in the framebuffers?
Sad that it does not print errors. Or does it on the Mac with a console open?

[erico]

I did a test code on this issue for mac a while ago on another thread. So if code is needed to test we could use that.

[erico]

A test project is here:
http://www.glbasic.com/forum/index.php?topic=9835.0

Download the second project:  OSX_test.zip (2525.88 kB)