[SDL] DirectAccess to Video Memory [was: Hello, new member reporting]

[Donny Viszneki]

On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 1:19 AM, Pierre Phaneuf <pphaneuf at gmail.com> wrote:
> Wanting to wait for the vertical refresh is also a sign of trying to
> micro-manage things. Some video hardware can take care of all that by
> itself, where if a blit command is posted, the GPU can wait until the
> retrace is past the destination area, instead of waiting for the
> retrace to be at the bottom. After all, why wait until it's at the
> bottom if you're blitting to the very top of the screen? Some clever
> cards/drivers could even reorder blits to non-overlapping destinations
> (for example, if you blit to the bottom and then the top, actually do
> the top while the retrace goes down).

Reminds me of some of the neat tricks used to make Super Mario Bros 3
possible (although if too many sprites occupy the same horizon, they
do start to flicker!)

-- 
http://codebad.com/