From:	Elliott Oti <e DOT oti AT stud DOT warande DOT ruu DOT nl>
Newsgroups:	comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject:	Re: Which is faster? Allegro or Sandmann's LFB
Date:	Wed, 25 Dec 1996 15:11:18 -0800
Organization:	Academic Computer Centre Utrecht, (ACCU)
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To:	djgpp AT delorie DOT com
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[Uzi] wrote:
> I was wondering .. which is faster for graphics programming which requires
> a high frame rate and uses double buffering in RAM for page-flipping? I
> havn't tried Allegro yet, but I managed to write some routines based on
> Charles Sandmann's (thanks!) VBE.ZIP, using a linear frame buffer under
> VBE 2.0.
> 
> I was hoping to avoid having to use univbe to invoke VBE 2.0, and am
> thinking of switching to Allegro's graphics library.

Allegro contains some test programs so you can download the stuff and
try it for yourself.
Basically, though, Allegro supports a few chipsets (Trident, S3 ..)
and the VESA implementations 1.2 and 2.0 for 8 bpp  models. The routines
are pleasingly fast; sure you can get more speed by coding your own custom
library and it can be enjoyable enough, but Allegro's speed has never
been a disappointing factor for its growing crowd of users.
It doesn't completely free you from Univbe, however; not all cards support
VBE 2.0 in BIOS, and many have flaky implementations at best, so I guess
for solid apps you'd still need Univbe shipping along.
The big plus about Allegro ( shit, here I am plugging another guy's product :)
is that its user base is growing enough to give the thing some real
momentum. Shawn Hargreaves (busy becoming a minor legend in his own right)
keeps on developing it, and the masses scream for more, so new features
like 15/16/24 bpp modes etc will probably arrive faster than you could
code your own version.
Plus the legion of Allegro users makes one mighty beta-testing army;
I know *my* software suffers from the Works-Fine-On-My-Machine syndrome.

At the very least there's loads of working source code in Allegro you
could lift :-) Go for it.

Elliott

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