PocketMatrix

When it comes to graphics in Argentum, I am the one to consult (Carpe is the über gameplay programmer). I don't remember doing anything special.

My alpha routine is set to use 256 steps (size of a uchar), and I work with channelvalues ranging from 0 to 255 (uchar again). So basically I am calculating it as truecolor first, and then I throw the channels together into a 16 bit color using bitshifts. But I think that is the general way of doing it. Think very few people are actually working with the actual 32 steps per channel. We are all too much brainwashed with truecolor values.

Anyways...one thing that could be causing your flickering is that you are using the iPAQ 36xx which has a 12 bit screen. In Argentum all game source images are before put into the game dithered down from 32 bit (at which I create them) to 12 bit and then I save them as 256 color images (to save storage space). Generally this makes gradients look better than if it was a true color bitmap I displayed, since I dither the colors down to what the actual screen is using.

Now if this makes fading look better I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised.

When you mentioned you see a slanted line, that was a giveaway to the problem. You are performing a rotation from your back buffer to the display surface each frame on iPaq devices.

This is going to pronounce any tearing effect much more than if you were writing to the buffer in a contiguous manner. Do a search in the archives and you'll find a post about a year ago where I was developing a fast back-to-front blit routine and tried a number of schemes. I abandoned it because the tearing was more than could be tolerated.

Digby,

You're absolutely right, I am doing exactly that. I've found your postings and reading them now, I don't feel so frustrated now. :-) the "tearing" as you put it is less noticable when fading to bright colours.. maybe I'll stick with that..

Thanks for your insight anyway!

Why don't you try IDA Pro Disassembler? There's a trial version available from their site: http://www.datarescue.com/idabase It supports loads of cpu cores as well as ARM.

An addition to this posting, I don't think you get ARM support in the trial, hmm.. maybe you best buy it then ;-)

Sure you do. If you break into the correct room, than the witness should no all about the arm code (assuming that he/she isn't part of the cleanup crew). And, you can have your lawyer ask him what you want to know.