Message-Id:	<199807041652.RAA22306@sable.ox.ac.uk>
Comments:	Authenticated sender is <mert0407 AT sable DOT ox DOT ac DOT uk>
From:	George Foot <george DOT foot AT merton DOT oxford DOT ac DOT uk>
To:	a DOT gillett AT virgin DOT net (Andrew R. Gillett)
Date:	Sat, 4 Jul 1998 17:46:32 +0000
MIME-Version:	1.0
Subject:	Re: Allegro graphics driver detection
Reply-to:	george DOT foot AT merton DOT oxford DOT ac DOT uk
CC:	djgpp AT delorie DOT com

On  4 Jul 98 at 2:32, Andrew R. Gillett wrote:

> If I autodetect the video driver, is there any way of telling which one 
> has been chosen?

gfx_driver points to the GFX_DRIVER struct for the currently selected 
graphics driver.

> I want a warning screen which says something along the 
> lines of:
> 
> 'WARNING: You need VESA 2 graphics to play this game properly'

But that would be a lie -- how do you know they aren't using a driver 
that's better than VESA 2?  I think the best way to add this sort of 
warning would be to measure the frame rate and point out to the user 
that what they're seeing is an undesirably low frame rate, and that 
perhaps they should try to use a more suitable driver.

> (my games are very slow, I am writing a C&C clone in 800x600x16bit, which 
> runs at 3fps...)

Could you not make an option to run the game in a lower colour depth 
with lower quality graphics, or even at a lower resolution?  The 
former would be a simple change -- create a reasonable palette and 
set it (and the colour depth) before loading your graphics, and then 
Allegro will adjust the images' colour depths as it loads them.

-- 
george DOT foot AT merton DOT oxford DOT ac DOT uk

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