Video options

[Ludo]

I asked on the sdlmame forum about a "video auto" solution: 

Is there a way for MAME to test if OpenGL is "available" and switch to "video soft" if it's not (to avoid crash on startup if /dev/fb0 is not found) ? A new value like "video auto" could be implemented ?

R. Belmont : "video soft" is the default on non-MacOSX for pretty much that reason. Auto-detection is not possible. Attempting to access OpenGL even for detection purposes when it's not available would crash at least MAME and probably X in some situations.

--

Ludo.

[Félix Arreola Rodríguez]

Maybe we could ask the user with debconf in the postinstall script for
the type of video?

And just modify the line concerning to video (doesn't matter if mame.ini
was created postinst or as conffile)

--
Atte. Félix Arreola Rodríguez,
Firmado con GPG, llave 1E249EE4

[Jordi Mallach]

Hey,

On Wed, Apr 06, 2011 at 01:11:15PM +1100, Ludo wrote:
> I asked on the sdlmame forum about a "video auto" solution:

> *Is there a way for MAME to test if OpenGL is "available" and switch to

> "video soft" if it's not (to avoid crash on startup if /dev/fb0 is not

> found) ? A new value like "video auto" could be implemented ?*

>
> R. Belmont : "video soft" is the default on non-MacOSX for pretty much that
> reason. Auto-detection is not possible. Attempting to access OpenGL even for
> detection purposes when it's not available would crash at least MAME and
> probably X in some situations.

Thanks Ludo for asking.

*shrug*. I'm no coder at all so I'm not the best to give lessons on this,
but I think there are plenty examples of programs that try to init OpenGL
and do something useful if they fail, instead of segfaulting:

- Ubuntu tries to enable Compiz, and if it can't, it goes back to
Metacity.

- GNOME3 tries to start GNOME Shell, and if it fails, it starts the Panel.

- Many other programs show a "Unable to init OpenGL" or "Direct Rendering
not available" error message.

But I'm no expert so I'll have to believe it can't be done in SDL or
whatever.

--
Jordi Mallach P�rez -- Debian developer http://www.debian.org/
jo...@sindominio.net jo...@debian.org http://www.sindominio.net/
GnuPG public key information available at http://oskuro.net/

[Jordi Mallach]

Hola!

On Tue, Apr 05, 2011 at 09:45:07PM -0500, F�lix Arreola Rodr�guez wrote:
> Maybe we could ask the user with debconf in the postinstall script for
> the type of video?
>
> And just modify the line concerning to video (doesn't matter if mame.ini
> was created postinst or as conffile)

We could, but this would force us to manage mame.ini with ucf and that it
a bit of a pain in the ass. I think it can be a good idea that we can
explore in the future, but for now, to get something in unstable, I would
try to go the easy route and do a simple dpkg conffile without
debconf/ucf.

Jordi