4 ms·
I remember implementing a side scrolling platformer on my 386 and being boggled by how slow everything was compared to on consoles. Didn’t know what hardware ac
by davedx 4y ago
I remember implementing a side scrolling platformer on my 386 and being boggled by how slow everything was compared to on consoles. Didn’t know what hardware acceleration was then, and this was before I got Internet access so I worked it out myself, coded it in C, then hand optimized the inner drawing loop in assembly, rewriting the pixel writes to use rep/mov instructions for each tile. This took a while but I managed to squeeze out acceptable performance for my game with Keen-like smooth scrolling.
Reading Masters of Doom some 30 years later was pretty eye opening. This article too - to this day I’ve never heard of latch writes.
So much voodoo in graphics programming!!
- moosedev 4y agoSince you mentioned latch writes, check out Michael Abrash’s Graphics Programming Black Book[0], chapter 23 onwards, if you feel like immersing yourself further in well-written VGA lore. Not recommended for your present-day productivity (unless you’re making retro games!) [0] https://www.jagregory.com/abrash-black-book/ https://www.jagregory.com/abrash-black-book/
- dylan604 4y agoMaybe that's where the 3dfx voodoo name originates?