Path: chuka.playstation.co.uk!news From: James Shaughnessy Newsgroups: scea.yaroze.freetalk,scee.yaroze.freetalk.english Subject: Re: Net Yaroze Tutorial Preview Date: Mon, 21 Sep 1998 13:02:47 +0100 Organization: PlayStation Net Yaroze (SCEE) Lines: 53 Message-ID: <36064067.123D@manc.u-net.com> References: <360587BD.5668FFB0@bigfoot.com> Reply-To: james@manc.u-net.com NNTP-Posting-Host: manc.u-net.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0 (Win95; I) Xref: chuka.playstation.co.uk scea.yaroze.freetalk:978 scee.yaroze.freetalk.english:2418 Darco wrote: > Once this routine is called, the GPU automaticly "turns off" the > screen by default. Not sure why it does this.. It will surely be because you don't want to actually see the gibberish that's probably on the frame buffer; so it turns off, and will then automatically activate when the next GsSwapDispBuff() is called -- so calling SetDispMask(1) is not necessary. I know for the sake of the Hello World tutorial OTs and double buffering are a bit too much for the beginner, but they are unavoidably only a whisker away. > RECT screen_c; I think this would be the best time to tell them that the display area defaults to the upper left 320x240 of the 1Mb 1024x512 frame buffer, with a nice diagram too perhaps. Clearing the *whole* frame buffer may confuse them don't you think? Also a quick hint that a second 'buffer' will invariably be right below it, and the rest of the video memory is used for sprites and/or 3D object textures. Also the macro setRECT should be taught from the start I think, as it really tidies thing up (no need to tell them that it's a macro and not a libps.h function yet though :), so you could do this: RECT screen; setRECT(&screen, 0, 0, 320, 240); // The above setRECT line is eqivalent to doing these 4 lines: // screen.x = 0; // .x .y is the top left coordinate of // screen.y = 0; // the frame buffer we want to clear // screen.w = 320; // .w is the width of the RECT // screen.h = 240; // .h is the height of the RECT I am curious why you use the "_c" as it may perhaps scare a few people? It is a brilliant thing you're doing as so many assumptions are made that people are familiar with C, it's great that a total beginner has a full explanation of everything rather than the all too common: "I'd better put that bit of code in as it doesn't work otherwise..." I know we all agreed when we bought the Yaroze that we had a working knowledge of C, but now that it cost £230 there will perhaps be a big surge of total beginners who'll be eternally grateful for your tutorial. Hope you don't think I'm being too pedantic or picky by the way! Cheers, Jim -- ----------------------------------------- James Shaughnessy james@manc.u-net.com http://www.netyaroze-europe.com/~shaughnj -----------------------------------------