GL-Chronicles [-= MAIN =-]

Revision 2.1.27

Latest Article: Setting Up An IDE
Next GL-Challenge: Unannounced

Site Updated: Jul 01, 2009

Welcome, Guest!

Musings from the studio bench:

DirectX, Vista, and Code::Blocks

July 1, 2009

With the completion of my first university degree and the nearing completion of my second degree, I am now turning my attention back to demo programming. I have been running Windows Vista for some time now and I have noticed that OpenGL seems to run slower on Vista than DirectX. When I started poking around on MSDN and other sources of information on Vista I discovered that, quite naturally, Vista uses DirectX to implement the Aero effects system. Specifically, Vista seems to set a DirectX application to full-screen mode which it renders all on-screen displays through. The upshot of this is that OpenGL performance suffers on Vista in windowed mode because it must pass through a translation layer in DirectX. Furthermore, running OpenGL in full-screen mode necessitates shutting down the desktop window manager (DWM) and this messes up desktop effects such as DreamScene. Perhaps I am mistaken, but it seems to me that Vista (and its iterative inheritors) have created a schism in the graphics programming world: DirectX must be used in Vista+ in order to achieve any degree of efficiency while OpenGL is relegated to the domain of Linux, etc. Basically, one either uses Microsoft products, or they don't. There doesn't seem to be any middle ground anymore.

That said, I really loath being forced into using a specific set of tools for production. Specifically, programming for a Microsoft system necessitates using a Microsoft compiler. This just makes good sense. However, I just can't bring myself to use the Microsoft compiler suite (Visual Studio). The simplest way of obtaining the Microsoft compiler is by downloading Visual C++ 2008 Express and installing it. This compiler can be used with the wonderful Code::Blocks IDE after this step is completed. See Phil's article here for instructions on how to set Code::Blocks up. Having a resource editor for Win32 is also a must (convenient at least) if you don't want to work with the wxWidgets GUI system provided with Code::Blocks. ResEdit is a free resource editor that works very well with Code::Blocks.

Posted by: godvalve

OpenGL Challenge archive now online.

October 4, 2008

The archive of demo entries from OTri's OpenGL Challenge are now online. To access the archive, navigate over to the GL Challenge section and click on Archive in the menu. The archived demos are organized according to year and month. Click on the year and month to view all demos submitted during that period. I have also activated the "Archived Demos" randomizer that you should see to the right of this page and on all GL Challenge related pages. There are approximately 180 demos in the archive that are viewable both through the randomizer and the archive. I don't have any Linux ports of these demos available for download and so I appologize to my Linux visitors. Anyone interested in porting these demos (MacOSX, Linux, etc) are welcome to and I will include appropriate links. I have a handful of ports for a handful of demos that I will get online in the next little while.

A word about Firefox browsers: This site is being developed with Firefox and is also being tested in Internet Explorer. I have started using some experimental CSS3 Mozilla text wrap functionality to help organize some of the information that I am presenting. Specifically, I am using -moz-column-width and -moz-column-number arguments in some of my html containers and I have noticed that the results are quite inconsistent. I mention this only because I have noticed that sometimes the text on pages using this CSS bunches up on itself and makes the page unreadable. Hitting F5 to refresh the page usually fixes this problem but if you are on any of my AJAX fed pages you will have to click again on the link that brought you to that page to refresh it. Of course, your mileage may vary. You will not experience any of these problems if you are using IE, but the pages will be tough to read if you have a large monitor as the text will run from one edge of the monitor to the other. I am running a 24 inch monitor at full screen and so breaking the text into multiple columns makes the text much easier to read or skim through. As always, leave comments in the forum about either the archive or issues about the way the page displays for you.

Posted by: godvalve

Greetings from the other side!

September 30, 2008

Salutations earth people! I am the other half of Godvalve, or more specifically I am married to the man so named. I don't do much in the way of programming, as my current knowledge in that area remains plateaued at the level of HTML and CSS. I serve mostly as the sounding board for ideas and a consultant for the visual presentation of this site. I have recently attempted to exercise my HTML skills in creating a subdomain on mccolm.org for my own largely unexplored hobby, genealogy. This sad attempt at posting some of my vast genealogical data can be found at www.genealogy.mccolm.org -- but only if you care to snicker in its general direction. At any rate enjoy the website! And yes, I picked that colour grey you see. That one right there. That's the one I picked; I think it makes the whole website delightful.

Posted by: nuttkayc

A Wonderful Surprise!

September 26, 2008

As I have mentioned in different places around this site, the GL Challenge is an idea that is not unique to me and is based on a previous model developed by OTri. OTri is a great guy I met while at College and he is the one who introduced me to OpenGL. He created the OpenGL Challenge in 1999 and the project ran for 17 months. I have recently been in contact with OTri and he has provided me with an archive of all demos that were submitted during this period. I will be posting these demos in the archive section of the GL Challenge.

Thank you OTri!

Posted by: godvalve

Status Update

September 9, 2008

Well, it has taken longer than I thought it would but I finally have all of the backend management tools built (or rebuilt in several cases) for this site. I am quite excited by how the tools have turned out and it is my hope that these tools will greatly diminish the amount of work that will be required for administration and maintenance tasks. I plan to post some comprehensive screen shots of my tools in my developer journal for all to see (this journal is still a work in progress) and I will release this suite of tools into the public domain (GPL) for any who are interested. The screen shots below are just a preview of what I have created.

On a personal note, I am currently in the process of completing a second degree at the University of Victoria in Education. While school is always a time consuming task, I plan to officially launch the GL Challenge for November 1. The theme for this challenge will focus on tunnels with the main task being to implement the classic tunnel scene in a novel and interesting way.

Screen Shots:

Posted by: godvalve

Growing Pains

June 22, 2008

I am presently in the process of reworking the user management system in preparation for the launch of the GL-Challenge. This process has necessitated the paring down of the current user base to include only those users who actively log in to the site. Those accounts that have been recently created but never activated by logging in for the first time have been deemed by Naraphim and me to be inactive accounts. I realize that there isn't much reason to log into the site at the moment and therefore some user accounts may have been mistakenly deleted. I apologize for any inconvenience and encourage all regular visitors to recreate their accounts. As well, I encourage all users to head over to the forum and introduce themselves.

Posted by: godvalve