[Bf-committers] [Fwd: [ bf-blender-Patches-2795 ] Windows GHOST fix for better pixel formats]

[Matthew H. Plough]

Hi all,

Today, Daniel Dunbar was kind enough to commit my Windows GHOST pixel 
format patch.  As outlined in the patch description, this patch is 
designed to do a better job of choosing the correct pixel format than 
the utterly broken ChoosePixelFormat function in the Windows API.  My 
code tries to pick the best pixel format it can that is still hardware 
accelerated, thereby keeping good performance while increasing visual 
quality and preventing visual artifacts.

On many systems (those that already use swap copy and a decently good 
z-buffer), no effects should be seen.  However, on systems -- especially 
Quadro cards and 3Dlabs cards -- that use swap exchange buffer swaps by 
default, this patch should make problems like these ( 
http://www.princeton.edu/~mplough/tmp/buttons_error.png ) go away, if 
the system is capable of hardware-accelerated swap copy.  Also, on 
systems that can support hardware-accelerated high resolution z-buffers 
but don't currently use them because of the brain-dead design of the 
Windows ChoosePixelFormat function, black triangles around the edges of 
shapes in shaded mode will disappear. 

If anyone has any feedback, good or bad, about these changes, please let 
me know. 

In other OpenGL-related news, I am making progress creating a GHOST 
diagnostics and validation stub in Windows that will allow us to rapidly 
obtain in-depth technical information on different graphics cards, as 
well as ascertain their capabilities.  Martin and a couple of other 
people have seen the output of a preliminary version of my data spewer 
program.  If at all possible, I would like to discuss this and other 
OpenGL-related tasks that I have been working on at next Sunday's meeting. 

Regards,
Matt
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