Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject: Re: Speed of Allegro Datafiles
From: you AT somehost DOT somedomain (Herman Schoenfeld)
Organization: Your Organization
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References: <34176C9A DOT 6E20 AT voyageur DOT ca> <Wi7mc5ADIHG0EwpB AT talula DOT demon DOT co DOT uk> <E6di6cCZz$G0EwLo AT talula DOT demon DOT co DOT uk>
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Date: 15 Sep 97 08:16:04 GMT
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In article <E6di6cCZz$G0EwLo AT talula DOT demon DOT co DOT uk>, Shawn AT talula DOT demon DOT co DOT uk 
says...
>
>Herman Schoenfeld writes:
>>Well, allegro allocates memory for lots of things (bitmaps, objects, etc) 
these 
>>
>>4meg
>>----------------------------------------
>>  A    |    B    |    C     |    D     |
>>----------------------------------------
>>
>>Say all these objects take 1 meg, free B and D, and try allocating 2 meg. You 
>>can't. 
>
>Yes you can, if you are working in protected mode...
>
>Sure, fragmentation can occasionally be a problem, but I don't think it
>is something that Allegro should be concerned with. If you need custom
>memory management routines you are very welcome to write some, but the
>standard library routines are perfectly good enough for most situations.
>The only 100% sure way to prevent fragmentation is to use a handle based
>system with movable blocks, which would incur way too much overhead for
>something like Allegro...

Well, for starters it doesn't take much overhead at all (I think I might show 
you some working code sometime) and secondly, all games have custom memory 
handlers. Thirdly, it has caused problems for me (ie, I load an 2-4 FLI's as a 
textures and I get problems).

>
>
>--
>Shawn Hargreaves - shawn AT talula DOT demon DOT co DOT uk - http://www.talula.demon.co.uk/
>Beauty is a French phonetic corruption of a short cloth neck ornament.