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Re: Coalesced Updates?

To: REALbasic Games <realbasic-games at lists dot realsoftware dot com>
Subject: Re: Coalesced Updates?
From: Seth Willits <seth at freaksw dot com>
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 20:02:53 -0800
Delivered-to: realbasic-games at lists dot realsoftware dot com
References: <B024FE11-7D04-4046-AC92-195BB255CBA5 at xochi dot com> <a062007a5bff6cf3aebf5 at [10 dot 0 dot 1 dot 13]> <7EAF2A69-E1F9-41E1-8A02-4FB27FF03287 at xochi dot com>
On Jan 20, 2006, at 4:51 PM, Michael Diehr wrote:

Right, but the article gives guidance on the good and bad practices, and I'm wondering if there are any tips that users should be aware of, since RB doesn't handle everything for us.

You don't have to do anything.


I've designed some nice pretty user interfaces using RB that look great under OS X, but look god awful under XP because of the lack of double-buffering, so it's a concern.

The lack of double-buffering on Windows is a concern for your Mac OS X app? I don't follow that.


My reading of the technote suggests that, under 10.4.4, the window backing store buffer may not always flush to the screen when we expect it to (or ask it to?).

Right. If you're drawing faster than the display can update, then it simply won't let you flush to the buffer because it can cause tearing. This syncing to the display refresh rate isn't a concern. The real question is how the "Extended Drawing Interval" adversely affect your app's performance...


Anyone out there have any realbasic programs that do a lot of window updating, and care to comment on whether the performance or CPU usage has changed with 10.4.4?

If you're writing just a plain-Jane application, you won't notice the difference. If you're doing a game, you may.

If your OpenGL game is running in a window (for example), place another application's window in front/on top of the game and the frame rate in the game drops considerably. (If the window isn't on top of the context, your game will run at 90 or even a hundred FPS - No limit - but the buffer is drawn into [composited by the window server] only 60 times per second.) This only occurs with coalescing turned on. If it's off, your game will run at full speed regardless. The reason behind this isn't clear to me and seems unexplained by the technote.



Seth Willits
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Freak Software - http://www.freaksw.com/
ResExcellence - http://www.resexcellence.com/realbasic/
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