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.  No optimizations have been made at this time.
  26
  27
  28
  29 Compiling
  30
  31 Simply cd to the Mesa-3.x directory and type "make beos-r4".
  32 When it finishes the libMesaGL.so and libMesaGLU.so libraries for
  33 BeOS will be in the Mesa-3.x/lib/ directory.
  34
  35
  36
  37 Example Programs
  38
  39 Look in the Mesa-3.x/BeOS/ directory for one or two BGLView demo
  40 programs.  They should have been compiled along with the Mesa
  41 library.
  42
  43
  44
  45 GLUT
  46
  47 A version of GLUT 2.5 for BeOS can be found in src-glut.beos/.
  48 The original distribution can be obtained from
  49 http://home.beoscentral.com/jehamby/Glut-3.5-x86.zip
  50
  51 This is a special version of GLUT adapted for the BeOS.  I don't
  52 believe Mark Kilgard's normal GLUT distribution includes BeOS
  53 support.
  54
  55 It seems that you have to recompile GLUT with libMesaGL.so instead
  56 of libGL.so in order for everything to work.  I'm not sure why.
  57
  58
  59
  60 Special Features
  61
  62 Mesa's implementation of the BGLView class has an extra member
  63 function:  CopySubBufferMESA().  It basically works like SwapBuffers()
  64 but it only copies a sub region from the back buffer to the front
  65 buffer.  This is a useful optimization for some applications.
  66 If you use this method in your code be sure that you check at runtime
  67 that you're actually using Mesa (with glGetString) so you don't
  68 cause a fatal error when running with Be's OpenGL.
  69
  70
  71
  72 Work Left To Do
  73
  74 Color index mode is not implemented yet.
  75
  76 Reading pixels from the front buffer not implemented yet.
  77
  78 There is also a BGLScreen class in BeOS for full-screen OpenGL
  79 rendering.  This should also be implemented for Mesa.
  80
  81
  82
  83 Old BeOS Driver
  84
  85 Mesa 2.6 had an earlier BeOS driver.  It was based on Mesa's Off-screen
  86 rendering interface, not BGLView.  If you're interested in the older
  87 driver you should get Mesa 2.6.
  88
  89
  90
  91 BeOS and Glide
  92
  93 Mesa 3.0 supported the 3Dfx/Glide library on Beos.  Download Mesa 3.0
  94 if interested.  Ideally, the 3Dfx/Glide support should be updated to
  95 work with the new Mesa 3.1 BGLView implementation.
  96
  97 The Glide library hasn't been updated for BeOS R4, to my knowledge, as
  98 of February, 1999.
  99
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 101 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
 102 $Id: README.BEOS,v 1.5 1999/03/03 02:34:04 brianp Exp $