From: frenchc AT cadvision DOT com (Calvin French)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject: AllegroX project?
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 17:35:21 GMT
Organization: CADVision Development Corp.
Lines: 30
Message-ID: <5ina4e$1qmc@elmo.cadvision.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: ts51ip66.cadvision.com
To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
DJ-Gateway: from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp

Awhile back I made a suggestion (which was probably shot down, don't
rightly recall, you see) to add DirectX support to Allegro. This seems
like an unbelievably good idea to me, here's why:

1) Eliminates the need for game developers to use Windows altogether.
DJGPP is already 32-bit, now if we can use DirectX drivers (which
every accellerated video board on the planet will ship with) there is
no advantage to coding in Windows.

2) We don't have to write a million bazillion drivers to use Allegro
with accelerated video cards.

Now don't get me wrong, this is no FreeWin95 thing or some such crap,
all i'm wondering is basically how feasable is it to add DirectX
driver support to Allegro? Mainly we'd start with Direct2D/3D and
DirectSound, but I can't see why eventually we could not work in
DirectNetwork (or whatever, I'm really no dozer) and
Direct-Whatever-The-Heck-Else-There-Is.

If this is a stupid idea, at least tell me why. Would it require
rearranging the data structures? This would surely suck the big one.
In my experience though, with a bit of tricky forethought /
afterthought, interfacing alien code is not always impossible...

Shawn? Anybody?

Send a reply along to frenchc AT cadvision DOT com, too, if you don't mind...

- Calvin -