Re: [MiNT] VDI? (was Re: an urgent GEM question :-)

["Johan Klockars" <johan@klockars.net>]

>>>> I am not sure.  Can only give my perspective.  If fvdi won't drive the
>>>> display on my Hades then it's a show stopper.  I think ozk managed to do
>>>> that, maybe even for the Milan.  I forget just how far he got with it.

It's not up to fVDI itself to drive your display. That's a driver matter.
If oVDI could do it and is indeed open source, just port the driver
and you're "done".
As I mentioned earlier, it's extremely simple to get fVDI to draw on a display.

>> Fvdi would also have to at least meet the current feature set of the
>> nova/nvdi software as well.  All the available biplanes and virtual modes
>> supported, proper video mode generator (very important), etc.  If one has to
>> lose some features, you can guess the out come. ;)

It should be pretty obvious that a hobby project by one programmer has
a somewhat difficult time matching something that has likely sold tens
of thousands of copies.
Give me half a million dollars or so and I'll see what I can do.  ;-)

I guess that's the point of making a more visible CVS, though.
Together it is easier to get somewhere. The sources have always been
available, but besides for ARAnyM, no one has ever done anything
except me.

Anyway, fVDI actually does not have to do what you say, since it is
perfectly capable of working as a "device driver" for NVDI. That is,
NVDI can use fVDI as a back end to draw on any display that fVDI
supports. So, until every feature you need is implemented in fVDI,
just use NVDI on top (or below, to setup modes and deal with the mouse
cursor, etc, if that's what you need).

> it's clear that "our" free VDI should meet what NVDI already has, but
> which is the best starting point fVDI or oVDI? (problably merging both

Does anyone know what oVDI has that fVDI doesn't?
Well, except more things implemented in plain C code.

> Also would be nice to avoid different persons to work in difference
> VDIs (like happen with the AES), we are so few to waste resources, but

Definitely. I've never understood the Atari developers' need to do yet
another version of everything. I would never have begun fVDI (eleven
years ago now) if there had been something else to use (or if there
had been a way to write NVDI device drivers). I just needed something
that could drive the then upcoming Eclipse (ATI Rage) graphics card,
and to experiment with FastRAM buffered screens on my Afterburner.
fVDI has been working fine for both those things for more than ten
years, and now with ARAnyM for seven years as well.

/Johan