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Subject: Nano-X for games and gaming.
From: Simon Wood
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2000 14:48:18 +0100

Hi all,
I had a muck around last night at porting the gameboy emulator GBE over to nano-x, it
seems to work (partially) but is D.O.G slow. The two problems I've got is input sensing
and output rendering speed.

Output Speed.
The present system uses a 'plot(x,y,c)' function to plot into a non visible screen,
then this is blitted to the visible window from time to time. The blitting is reasonably
fast (well in comparison), but the plotting is very slow.

I have implemented plot with:
	GrSetGCForeground(gc, c)
	GrPixel(window, x, y)
and the blit with:
	GrCopyArea(blar blar blar)

This seems to go through a whole load of stuff, message passing etc and then finally
sets the bits in memory somewhere. Is it possible to bypass all this and go straight
to the memory (after I own as I malloc'ed it...).

If so what is the format and will it always be constant across different platforms -
I have a vague memory that nano-x is 24 bit internal and only limits on the final rendering?
(I would love horizontal scan lines, 3 bytes per pixel RGB !!).

I assume the CopyArea stuff is optmised as best as possible....

Input sensing.
As with most games you want to sense multiple buttons held down simulataneous, can Nano-x
handle this? The X version uses shift and control etc, and X seems to issue events on
modifier key press/release.


If I can get it running past the intro screen and faster that a frame a minute then
I put it up for download..... 
Simon Wood


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