just a simple question

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2 comments, last by smokes 21 years, 10 months ago
Can a directdraw 7 backbuffer be in system memory? would this be a severe performance hit?.. I want to keep every surface in sysmen except the primary buffer (which of course is impossible :-).. do sys->sys blit.. and then flip.. But as I understand pageflipping is archieved by swapping vidmem pointers.. and then it won''t work if the backbuffer is in sysmem.. then it should be done with a sysmen backbuffer surface and a regular blt?.. I need to alter my backbuffer heavily for certain effects.. and reading from vidmem IS very slow.. So I should treat the vidmem as write only right?
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I''m programming with DirectDraw, and messing with the backbuffer by doing some reads to modify the data, as well.

Has anyone testing any of the latest video cards on how fast you can read from the video buffer, in comparison to how fast you can write to it?

Just curious. I may make a program to do this myself if no one has.

Jason Doucette
http://www.jasondoucette.com/
Jason Doucette / Xona.comDuality: ZF — Xbox 360 classic arcade shmup featuring Dual Play
that really answered my question Jason.. and thanks for changing the subject of my thread too ;-)

Reading from video memory is slow. If you''re doing a lot of pixel pushing, don''t do it on a video surface.

You can either write to an offscreen sysmem surface and blit to the primary (you''ll get tearing) or write to the offscreen sysmem surface and blit to a video mem backbuffer and flip.


Stay Casual,

Ken
Drunken Hyena
Stay Casual,KenDrunken Hyena

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