From: Marcus Sundberg <mackan@stacken.kth.se>
  To  : ggi-develop@eskimo.com
  Date: Sat, 06 Mar 1999 15:28:07 +0000

Re: Sprites in video memory

Ruben wrote:
> 
> Or Elnekaveh wrote:
> 
> > 1. System RAM, not the faster VRAM.
> 
> In my case it isn't true, I have a S3 Virge and main memory SDRAM, so,
> my main memory is faster than card memory. And I know that there are many
> people with the same problem.

If you want to use main memory you use either a memory visual (if you
want to draw in it with the LibGGI API) or a malloc()ed array together
with ggiPutBox().

The only issue is when you want to keep things in video memory.

> > 2. No hardware support for Blitting and other features.
> 
> It's true, but when you draw sprites you haven't hardware acceleration
> at all. I don't know any card that supports blitting with masks... Maybe
> my own card supports it and I don't know this :)

I'd think most modern cards support this.

> > Create a DrawMap (yes, a new term) and to be able to point the visual into
> > drawing into it.
> > It does mean changing a few values within the visual, but it is the mode/gc
> > and some other thing.  Then you should be able to draw something on VRAM
> > using hardware acceleration.

You are basicly describing the already existing sub-target here.

//Marcus
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        Marcus Sundberg        | http://www.stacken.kth.se/~mackan/
 Royal Institute of Technology |       Phone: +46 707 295404
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