docs/README.BEOS

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   2                          Mesa / BeOS Information
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   4
   5
   6 Introduction
   7
   8 Mesa 3.1 features a new driver for the BeOS.  The new driver implements
   9 a clone of the BGLView class.  This class, derived from BView, allows
  10 OpenGL rendering into a BeOS window.
  11
  12 Any application which uses the BGLView should be able to use Mesa
  13 instead of Be's OpenGL without changing any code.
  14
  15 Since Be's OpenGL implementation (as of R4) is basically just the
  16 SGI sample implementation, it's pretty slow.  You'll see that Mesa
  17 is considerably faster.
  18
  19
  20
  21 Source Code
  22
  23 The source code for the driver is in Mesa-3.1/src/BeOS/GLView.cpp
  24 It's not 100% finished at this time but many GLUT-based demos are
  25 working.  Specifically, color index mode isn't implemented at all.
  26 No optimizations have been made at this time.  Any volunteers?
  27
  28
  29
  30 Compiling
  31
  32 Simply cd to the Mesa-3.x directory and type "make beos-r4".
  33 When it finishes the libMesaGL.so and libMesaGLU.so libraries for
  34 BeOS will be in the Mesa-3.x/lib/ directory.
  35
  36
  37
  38 Example Programs
  39
  40 Look in the Mesa-3.x/BeOS/ directory for one or two BGLView demo
  41 programs.  They should have been compiled along with the Mesa
  42 library.
  43
  44
  45
  46 GLUT
  47
  48 It seems that you have to recompile GLUT with libMesaGL.so instead
  49 of libGL.so in order for everything to work.  I'm not sure why.
  50
  51 In any case, you'll have to download and compile GLUT for BeOS and
  52 put libglut.so in the Mesa-3.x/lib/ directory before you can compile
  53 the demos/, samples/ and book/ programs.
  54
  55 GLUT for BeOS can be found at
  56 http://home.beoscentral.com/jehamby/Glut-3.5-x86.zip
  57
  58 This is a special version of GLUT adapted for the BeOS.  I don't
  59 believe Mark Kilgard's normal GLUT distribution includes BeOS
  60 support.
  61
  62
  63
  64 Special Features
  65
  66 Mesa's implementation of the BGLView class has an extra member
  67 function:  CopySubBufferMESA().  It basically works like SwapBuffers()
  68 but it only copies a sub region from the back buffer to the front
  69 buffer.  This is a useful optimization for some applications.
  70 If you use this method in your code be sure that you check at runtime
  71 that you're actually using Mesa (with glGetString) so you don't
  72 cause a fatal error when running with Be's OpenGL.
  73
  74
  75
  76 Old BeOS Driver
  77
  78 Mesa 2.6 had an earlier BeOS driver.  It was based on Mesa's Off-screen
  79 rendering interface, not BGLView.  If you're interested in the older
  80 driver you should get Mesa 2.6.
  81
  82
  83
  84 BeOS and Glide
  85
  86 Mesa 3.0 supported the 3Dfx/Glide library on Beos.  Download Mesa 3.0
  87 if interested.  Ideally, the 3Dfx/Glide support should be updated to
  88 work with the new Mesa 3.1 BGLView implementation.
  89
  90
  91 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
  92 $Id: README.BEOS,v 1.4 1999/02/11 03:52:24 brianp Exp $