Author
Wow, there is such a thing as GDI+? I read about it in the online MSDN library
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/gdicpp/GDIPlus/AboutGDIPlus/IntroductiontoGDIPlus/OverviewofGDIPlus.asp
Is it really that better as they claim it to be?
"...but programmers of new applications should use GDI+ for all their graphics needs because GDI+ optimizes many of the capabilities of GDI and also provides additional features."
Is there a way to get GDI+ without using windows 2000 or XP?
Jonathan
Forget it for games, if that''s what you mean. It''s just as slow and ...you know, cumbersome (flickering sprites being the first thing that comes in mind). I also think it''s only available for the windows 2000 or xp platforms.
GDI+ is actually very good. It''s sort of like a GDI wrapper around DirectX, and although I haven''t used it for games or done any performance testing on it, I have used it for supporting tools (editors for loading textures, etc). I *think* you can use it on Win9x by simply copying gdiplus.dll, but I''m not sure.
Author
quote:Original post by BriTeg
I *think* you can use it on Win9x by simply copying gdiplus.dll, but I''m not sure.
Are you telling me that all the API functions that come with GDI+ are all in one .dll file?
Has anyone performed tests on the GDI+ vs GDI or has read an article about it???
Jonathan
quote:Original post by ageny6
Are you telling me that all the API functions that come with GDI+ are all in one .dll file?
Yes.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/gdicpp/GDIPlus/GDIPlus.asp
I was a bit wrong about Win9x. The page says XP, NT 4.0 (SP6), Win2K, Win98, and WinME. No Win95 listed. gdiplus.dll comes with XP, you have to distribute it for the others.
I used it because it handles .gif/.jpg/.png/.tiff easily. The matrix tranformations for scaling/rotating/etc, are pretty handy too, as are things like splines, gradient brushes, and alpha blending.
But sorry, no performance information.
I used gdi+(does transparency correctly unlike win98 api) but since I was also using mfc which provided me with features I needed I dropped gdi+. For win32 stuff I would consider it again. On win95/98/me one needs the gdiplus.dll redistributable file which can be downloaded from ms website. For dev. the gdi+ sdk has it all. Very nice toolkit and c++ like.
gdi+ works real nice for loading textures into OpenGL very easily and supports lots of nice file formats
When GDI+ came out with the Visual Studio .NET I went to try if it's really as good (having gone through nightmares of VB6 flickerings). So I decided to make a remake of our old VB4 game Mad Driver with GDI+ to see how good it is.
Here are the results (you can download the game to see for yourself (2MB) or get some VB.NET source to see how we made it):
Mad Driver v.NET
As I'm writing on the our page, the visual look is good, lots of things can be done with it, but the thing just isn't fast, because it is not hardware accelerated (GDI+ is no DirectX wrapper as someone mentioned). So for such a simple game as we've made you need 1GHz or better CPU to run the game smoothly in 1 player mode.
So I recomend GDI+ for static things only (and for manipulating bitmaps, getting pixel information or such), but for games use DX or OGL which makes use of your GPU.
[edited by - Flamer3D on May 30, 2003 7:44:24 AM]
Here are the results (you can download the game to see for yourself (2MB) or get some VB.NET source to see how we made it):
Mad Driver v.NET
As I'm writing on the our page, the visual look is good, lots of things can be done with it, but the thing just isn't fast, because it is not hardware accelerated (GDI+ is no DirectX wrapper as someone mentioned). So for such a simple game as we've made you need 1GHz or better CPU to run the game smoothly in 1 player mode.
So I recomend GDI+ for static things only (and for manipulating bitmaps, getting pixel information or such), but for games use DX or OGL which makes use of your GPU.
[edited by - Flamer3D on May 30, 2003 7:44:24 AM]
Author
You said you recoded a VB game? I understand that GDI+ is compatible with VB.Net. But, a guy like me has only VB6 and VC6. I know that it is only for c++ according to microsoft, but is there somewhere a VB6 GDI+?
Jonathan
[edited by - ageny6 on May 31, 2003 1:50:44 PM]
Jonathan
[edited by - ageny6 on May 31, 2003 1:50:44 PM]
As far as I know it is only for .NET languages (VB.NET, C#) because it came with Visual Studio .NET
This topic is closed to new replies.
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