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     Post subject:Disable Graphics
    PostPosted:Sat Apr 14, 2007 12:22 pm 
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    Joined:Sat Mar 11, 2006 8:28 am
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    When I run Uplink/Onlink the game will every once and a while will freeze for 5 seconds, I think if we can disable some graphics like
    Programs sliding up to your mouse, call-bouncing animated lines, and any other flashy un-needed stuff will benefit for the low end computer system users.

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    PostPosted:Sun Apr 15, 2007 2:36 am 
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    Something I suggested some time ago: 'Onlink lite', simply remove all the fancy graphics, and make it somewhat more memory effficient

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    PostPosted:Sun Apr 15, 2007 1:17 pm 
    Literally Nine
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    Quote:
    Something I suggested some time ago: 'Onlink lite', simply remove all the fancy graphics, and make it somewhat more memory effficient
    That would make it become something other than Onlink, something we don't want. It is efficient as is-- some peoples machines just suck and they don't want to admit it.


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    PostPosted:Sun Apr 15, 2007 2:39 pm 
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    The thing is do you really need the windows sliding to your mouse? Yes my computer is very old and sucks. It would be great if you can add an option to disable some un-need graphics.

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    PostPosted:Sun Apr 15, 2007 3:23 pm 
    Literally Nine
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    How about the 'disable animations' thing? Does that option even do much, or should we add a 'disable animations EXTREME' button or something? :)


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    PostPosted:Sun Apr 15, 2007 4:11 pm 
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    I have already disabled button animations, it actually helps a lot in the menus. Though still a lot slower then koria-lanlade.
    Although I noticed that disabling button animations does not disable the mail icons from sliding to the bottom right, It would be great if you can add that.

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    PostPosted:Sun Jul 15, 2007 5:53 pm 
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    Joined:Mon Mar 07, 2005 9:32 am
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    Would you complain about Doom 3 lagging on a Radeon 7500? I think not. Get a better PC kthx.

    Anyway, I was just browsing through the Uplink code (not sure how much applies to Onlink these days) and there are some very inefficient bits in the graphics engine (ECL, etc) code. Maybe it would be a good idea to give it a bit of an overhaul.

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    PostPosted:Tue Jul 17, 2007 1:04 am 
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    Eclipse doesn't touch OpenGL, for your information :)

    Yes, the graphics engine needs to be overhauled top to bottom. I'll get round to it some time.

    But at the moment, the graphics are done as bitmaps each frame, same with the text, which is GROSSLY inefficient. And it's using immediate mode, which is also one of my pet hates.

    Problem is, the OpenGL calls are scattered throughout Uplink, rather than isolated in one place.

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    PostPosted:Tue Jul 17, 2007 5:01 am 
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    How quick to load are Onlink's images? Iirc, it uses TIFF images. I've heard that the LZW mode of TIFF compression is really slow on the decompression side. Would there be a performance increase if raw bitmaps were used? Yes, I know they're big, but people have big hard drives damnit! Yeah...

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    PostPosted:Tue Jul 17, 2007 7:26 am 
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    The TIFFs aren't decompressed every frame, it's all stored internally as 32-bit RGBA.

    Problem is that the entire bitmap is uploaded to the GPU every frame for every image, which is painfully slow (no textures).

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