Re: eXene and openGL

Right.  SDL requires writing the event loop in the application, so it  
doesn't use callbacks.
As part of my sml3d project, I've been writing a new mlton/sdl  
library, but it is a pain,
since mlton's FFI doesn't handle C structs.  SML/NJ should work fine  
with this API.

	- John

On Jan 3, 2007, at 11:53 PM, brian wrote:

> You know - SDL doesn't seem to require callbacks.  I was almost  
> sure that it did.
> This makes SDL a really nice way to go.  Fast direct graphics  
> interface, without callbacks.
>
> I looked at the MLton interface to SDL (again - I already did some  
> time ago) but it doesn't seem to be doing much.
>
> hmmmm....
>
> Shouldn't take much work to see what nlffi thinks of the SDL header  
> files :-)
>
> Brian
>
>
> On Jan 3, 2007, at 7:06 AM, John Reppy wrote:
>
>> EXene is now being supported and developed by Ally Stoughton and his
>> students,
>> so they may be able to help you get the examples working.
>>
>> I'm not particularly optimistic about supporting OpenGL in EXene.
>> While it would
>> be possible to implement the GLX wire protocol [Historical note: when
>> I was actively
>> working on eXene in the 90's, the protocol was not documented, but
>> SGI eventually
>> released it] in eXene, there are significant performance
>> disadvantages to using
>> that protocol.  For real-time rendering, you want a DRI-style
>> implementation, but
>> I don't know how to support such an approach in eXene.
>>
>> For a while, I've thought that the low-level parts of eXene ought to
>> be rewritten
>> to sit on top of a C shim (XCB is an obvious choice).  Doing so
>> should make it easier
>> to connect to more modern X extensions, such as the render extension
>> and GLX.
>>
>> An alternative approach is to build a GUI library on top of GLUT (or
>> SDL).  I've been
>> working on this project using mlton, since SML/NJ doesn't have
>> callback support, but
>> I'm hoping that we'll get the necessary hooks in SML/NJ soon.
>>
>> 	- John
>>
>> On Jan 3, 2007, at 6:40 AM, brian wrote:
>>
>>> So as I slog through X code to make openGL useful it occurs to me
>>> that using eXene with openGL tied in would be a really nice way to
>>> go. eXene3D :-)
>>>
>>> There are a couple of problems:
>>>
>>> 1 I still can't get eXene examples to work.
>>>
>>> 2 Is there a gotcha in terms of the X interface which eXene uses and
>>> openGL ? eXene uses the socket level interface and I'm not sure what
>>> that implies for use with openGL.  Wthout thinking too hard, I don't
>>> think it implies anything.  I simply invoke glX calls using the
>>> display, window, etc.. I get from the eXene interface.
>>>
>>> Solving 1 is just a matter of time and persistence on my part.
>>>
>>> Understanding 2 is much more important.  Since I'll probably have to
>>> do considerable work for 1, I don't want to get to the end of the
>>> path and find out that there will be some problem connecting eXene/
>>> openGL.
>>>
>>> At first I thought that the use of threading might be a problem, but
>>> since they are "user level" threads, doesn't seem like that  
>>> should be
>>> an issue.
>>>
>>> Any opinions ?
>>>
>>>
>>> Brian
>>>
>>>
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