PocketHAL + GapiDraw == TRUE

[Johan]

Thanks to Thierry Trembley, the next release of GapiDraw (3.5) will ship with full PocketHAL support! GapiDraw 3.5 will be distributed as a statically linked library, without the need to supply an extra DLL file with the application. Licensing and distribution of the PocketHAL library will continue to be done by Thierry Tremblay at http://pockethal.droneship.com/.

GapiDraw 3.5 will be released in Q4 this year and will be a free upgrade to all current site licensees.

[ppcStudios]

For those of us that don't/haven't followed PocketHAL very closely or at all, what advantages does this implementation provide?

[Johan]

There will be several advantages:

(1) Some serious performance improvements on MediaQ devices and most other Pocket PC devices.
(2) Support for real vertical blank sync on many Pocket PCs to prevent tearing.
(3) A linear backbuffer in all display rotations. This will simply 3D rendering and pixel effects since the pitch values do not have to be taken into consideration.
(4) In addition to (3), GapiDraw will provide a mode where the backbuffer is not linear in all display rotations. If you look at the PocketHAL web site you'll see that the time to copy the backbuffer varies up to 100% on some devices. GapiDraw will provide an option to not use a linear frame buffer to achieve the smallest flip time possible, in all display orientations.

Licensing will still be done through Thierry, so to get rid of the "PocketHAL" startup banner one would have to discuss licensing details with him. GapiDraw will not ship with the PocketHAL library, nor will it include any actual PocketHAL code. PocketHAL will have to be downloaded by the end-user to compile the sample applications.

[Mr X]

GapiDraw 3.5 will be released in Q4 this year and will be a free upgrade to all current site licensees.

Does this mean that it will not be a free upgrade for hobbyist licenses?

[egarayblas]

Johan: I have a few questios below if you don't mind.

(1) Now that you've mentioned the advantages, are there any underlying disadvantages as well?
(2) Also, from what I understand, pockethal is a substitute for gx.dll right? How much work does it entail to convert a GD-gx based game to a GD-pockethal based game now?
(3) Will we still be able to use GapiApplication on top of PocketHal?
(4) Will you release any benchmark comparisons between a GD-gx and GD-pockethal based game?

Keep up the great work!

- Erick

[Johan]

Sean: If you buy 3.0 for your game you will get all bugfixes to that version, but not any new releases (such as 3.5 or 4.0). This is similar to most other commercial software.

As for Erick's questions:
(1) Now that you've mentioned the advantages, are there any underlying disadvantages as well? Wink

Well, PocketHAL does not at the moment support 640x480 on the newer WinMobile 2003 SE devices if I remember correctly. Neither does GapiDraw however at the moment (it will in 3.5).

(2) Also, from what I understand, pockethal is a substitute for gx.dll right? How much work does it entail to convert a GD-gx based game to a GD-pockethal based game now?

Nothing. You simply link with a different LIB (GapiDraw 3.5 will be shipped as statically linked LIB files).

(3) Will we still be able to use GapiApplication on top of PocketHal?

Yes, in fact you will never notice that GapiDraw is using PocketHAL as a backend (except for the startup banner which can be disabled by purchasing PocketHAL from Thierry).

(4) Will you release any benchmark comparisons between a GD-gx and GD-pockethal based game?

Probably..

[fzammetti]

A question for Thierry, since this is now relevant in this forum ... What is the cost to license PH? Is it still the "pay me what you think it's worth" model? Can you give us any more concrete numbers? Especially for us small-time developers, I now know what GD costs me, I'd like to have an idea what PH will cost me if I go this route.

[Kzinti]

Well, PocketHAL does not at the moment support 640x480 on the newer WinMobile 2003 SE devices if I remember correctly. Neither does GapiDraw however at the moment (it will in 3.5).

This is incorrect. PocketHAL works perfectly in 640x480. But scaling from a 320x240 backbuffer to 640x480 isn't implemented yet.

A question for Thierry, since this is now relevant in this forum :) ... What is the cost to license PH? Is it still the "pay me what you think it's worth" model? Can you give us any more concrete numbers? Especially for us small-time developers, I now know what GD costs me, I'd like to have an idea what PH will cost me if I go this route.

I am currently working on this issue. It would indeed make sense to fix a price for hobbyists.

[Johan]

This is incorrect. PocketHAL works perfectly in 640x480. But scaling from a 320x240 backbuffer to 640x480 isn't implemented yet.

Thanks, I didn't know this. At the moment then it seems like GapiDraw without PocketHAL will run at 320x240 on WM2003SE devices (through the GAPI layer), and GapiDraw with PocketHAL will run at 640x480 on them. At the moment I'm waiting for the hx4705 to be released to add support for 640x480 to the non-PocketHAL version of GapiDraw.

[Mr X]

A couple more questions...

Will gd3.5 be available only as libs, or will there be dll's available as well?

Will there be a beta or early access program? This is what I need right now

[Johan]

Hi Sean,

Will gd3.5 be available only as libs, or will there be dll's available as well?

GapiDraw 3.5 will only be shipped as a LIB file. The reasons are several, mainly:
(1) DLL Issues. We have to rename the DLL for each new minor revision we release. This means that all our GapiDraw projects, sample projects, installation scripts, documentation etc has to be updated to reflect this new DLL name. Simply renaming the DLL is enough motivation for us to go this route.
(2) PocketHAL. We will not include actual PocketHAL code in the GapiDraw LIB, and the user thus has to link statically to both GapiDraw and PocketHAL to get the samples to compile (PocketHAL would have to be downloaded from Thierry's home page). If we had chosen the DLL route we would have had to solve PocketHAL support with callbacks which isn't that nice.

Will there be a beta or early access program? This is what I need right now

Yes! Details on this will be announced soon.

[Kzinti]

Thanks, I didn't know this. At the moment then it seems like GapiDraw without PocketHAL will run at 320x240 on WM2003SE devices (through the GAPI layer), and GapiDraw with PocketHAL will run at 640x480 on them. At the moment I'm waiting for the hx4705 to be released to add support for 640x480 to the non-PocketHAL version of GapiDraw.

To avoid any confusion: PocketHAL supports 640x480 on WM2003 such as the Toshiba E800.

I haven't added WM2003SE specific support yet so I am unsure if it runs in 640x480 or 320x240.

[Guest]

Out of curiosity, what does this mean to those of us who use the GapiDraw.NET wrapper? I assume this wrapper requires a pre-compiled GAPIDraw dll, so building against the libs really wouldn't work too well.

Is it possible to roll-your-own dll if you use eVC++ to compiled the libs in to a dll?

I may sound crazy or stupid. I'm just trying to wrap my head around the options of using both/one/neither of the products in conjunction.

[Mr X]

Out of curiosity, what does this mean to those of us who use the GapiDraw.NET wrapper? I assume this wrapper requires a pre-compiled GAPIDraw dll, so building against the libs really wouldn't work too well.

Is it possible to roll-your-own dll if you use eVC++ to compiled the libs in to a dll?

I may sound crazy or stupid. I'm just trying to wrap my head around the options of using both/one/neither of the products in conjunction.

Gd.net requires a dll to link against as .net cannot link against libs.

Currently I am not sure what I am going to do. I will proably end up creating a wrapper dll (in evc++) that can be compiled with or without phal. I'll supply precompiled dlls so it simply becomes a matter of choosing the appropriate dll to include in the project.

The only reason for not using phal version is cost and/or the additional banner.

The additional work required means that I will probably need to make gd.net donation-ware or commercial.

[Johan]

Sean,

Can you send me an email on this one and we'll see what we can work out. Perhaps the best solution would be to also deliver a DLL file with the GapiDraw distribution, unfortunately then without PocketHAL support? We'll release 3.50 shortly and I can include a DLL version with it as well.

//Johan on a satellite link