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Re: Ticks and VBL

To: REALbasic Games <realbasic-games at lists dot realsoftware dot com>
Subject: Re: Ticks and VBL
From: Chris Dillman <chrisd at plaidworld dot com>
Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2005 11:55:31 -0500
Delivered-to: realbasic-games at lists dot realsoftware dot com
References: <BAY103-F1E223DC5C8FB1787E5853C1D40 at phx dot gbl>
In my application, I need to synchronize to the vertical blanking (VBL) signal to avoid image tearing and other artifacts caused by the lack of synchronization to the VBL.

I have a very effective solution that uses OpenGL and SuperSpriteSurface (thanks to John Balestrieri for his help configuring SSS to sync to VBL). Although effective, this solution doesn't seem optimal because I have to add on a lot of functions I will never use just to synchronize to VBL. Also, I have to worry about which version of OpenGL is installed and whether or not it will be compatible (by the way, if anyone has a handy link describing OpenGL compatibility on different Mac OSs I would appreciate knowing about it; for example, which versions of OpenGL were installed on all versions of OS X by default, if the ability to use the double-buffering is available on all versions of OpenGL, etc.).


You mean this...

http://homepage.mac.com/arekkusu/bugs/GLInfo.html



This is an even bigger issue on Windows because OpenGL is not installed by default so it has to be distributed and installed with the application.

It seems that a much more elegant solution would simply be to make the ticks function synchronized to the VBL. So, the ticks (1/60 sec, 1/72 sec) would be automatically changed depending on the graphics mode (60 Hz, 72 Hz respectively). That way, I would have the ability to synchronize anything to VBL without requiring OpenGL.

If anyone thinks it is worth pursuing with Apple, please provide me with a way to contact Apple. I hit a couple of dead ends ("you need to contact _____ instead" sorts of messages) on my own trying to contact Apple.


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