Playing Need For Speed 2, I noticed a very high performance on Intel P233 MMX without 3-D display card. However, playing Need For Speed 3 and writing my own Direct3D applications I had to use 320x240x16 resolutions to get *normal* frame rate.
Later, I noticed that NFS2 doesn't use Direct3D API at all. Instead, it uses it's own 3-D engine and DirectDraw to blit. NFS3 and my applications use Direct3D and so the performance is *very* low. The big question is, why did Microsoft say that Direct3D is a world-top performance??? I know that in order to get a high performance, I need a 3-D card, but not all players (and for them I develop my game) have a superb 3-D card at home! This entire topic confuses many graphics developers under Win32...
Alexander Levin.
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DirectX, Direct3D, the Win32 API, are all, by nature, not the fasted tools the world has ever known.
By interfacing with the Win95/98 OS and being as "User friendly" as possible, they sacrifice performance.
As always, the best method to get great perfomance is talking to the hardware itself. Regrettably, Microsoft
is making this more and more difficult, as Win95/98 becomes more instrusive, for example, the fact that only
VXDs have Ring 0 access (unless you know how to set it yourself... )
To complicate the situation, you typically have to pay $$$$ to get the SDK that details what ports to what,
and that's for every piece of hardware!
URL:http://acheronx.ml.org/home/
I like the way SDK's like GGI or _some_ GL-implimentations is coded, where you have a common 'wapper', that has drivers for several API's,
and later in runtime detects the fastes API. That makes the code very portable, and easily updated for new drivers/hardware.
When you code, you KNOW, that even is you change computer and OS, your program will still work a year after, and probably with better speed.
: First of all, you heard it from Microsoft.. if their lips are moving, you know they're lying...
: DirectX, Direct3D, the Win32 API, are all, by nature, not the fasted tools the world has ever known.
: By interfacing with the Win95/98 OS and being as "User friendly" as possible, they sacrifice performance.
: As always, the best method to get great perfomance is talking to the hardware itself. Regrettably, Microsoft
: is making this more and more difficult, as Win95/98 becomes more instrusive, for example, the fact that only
: VXDs have Ring 0 access (unless you know how to set it yourself... )
: To complicate the situation, you typically have to pay $$$$ to get the SDK that details what ports to what,
: and that's for every piece of hardware!