Topics

76

SFML website / SFML website has moved

« on: February 28, 2008, 04:58:53 pm »

SFML website and forums have moved to this new address : http://www.sfml-dev.org.

There is an automatic redirection from sfml.sourceforge.net, so don't worry about updating old links.

This brand new hosting should solve all the known problems

And sorry for the few posts lost during the transfer.

77

General discussions / Implementation of the TextEntered event in Linux

« on: February 26, 2008, 06:25:55 pm »

Hi

I'm proud to announce you that the TextEntered event is finally properly implemented in Linux

78

General discussions / News : sfml-audio finally 100% usable on Linux

« on: February 22, 2008, 03:28:22 pm »

Hi

As most of you know, the audio package on Linux is buggy due to the very bad official implementation of OpenAL.

I finally tested openal-soft, which is a free implementation of OpenAL and promises to be more stable than the official one. After a few tests, I can say that it works 100%, no more bug or jerky sound.

What's new now :

- On Windows, there's no more need to install OpenAL with oalinst.exe, a copy of openal32.dll will be enough.

- On Linux, as openal-soft is not yet widely supported on the repositories, you will most likely have to compile it yourself. The good news is that as a compliant implementation of OpenAL, you won't have to recompile SFML nor your programs using it, just replacing the binaries will do the job. I think I'll put a version of the precompiled binaries in the next Linux SDK, it will be more convenient for most people

More informations and downloads for openal-soft :
http://kcat.strangesoft.net/openal.html

79

General discussions / [SOLVED] SFML 1.2 RC

« on: December 12, 2007, 04:48:16 am »

Hi

I'm going to release the version 1.2 of SFML (probably by the end of the month).

Before releasing it, I need to make sure that everything is still working fine and no new bug have been introduced.

So, everyone who can use SVN is invited to get, compile and run the current version, and report any bug.

The list of what have been done since last version is still on the roadmap page of the website.

The C wrapper for SFML is also available, under the CSFML folder. All the packages except Graphics have been wrapped and are ready to be tested. I'm going to finish the Graphics wrapper very soon.

Please note that the MacOS port, as well as RubySFML have not been updated yet.

Thanks

80

General discussions / Need help to test the new joystick code

« on: December 05, 2007, 02:36:54 am »

Hi

I've modified the joystick code, to be able to handle up to 7 axes and 16 buttons.

But I have currently no joystick to test it, so I need your help. Everyone able to get the source from SVN, and owning a joystick, is invited to test the new code

The events and constants have slightly changed, so you should check the Event.hpp file to see what to test.

Thanks

81

General discussions / Less formats vs less dependencies ?

« on: October 27, 2007, 05:35:58 pm »

Hi

I've found a tiny library for loading and saving some image formats, which I could directly integrate to the SFML source code. It would remove the dependency to DevIL and zlib, but not all the formats currently supported would still be there.

However, the supported formats would be the most common ones :
- BMP
- TGA
- JPG
- PNG
- DDS

I need to know what is the most important for you : being able to manipulate uncommon image formats, or having less external dependencies ?

Thanks

82

General discussions / Roadmap added on website

« on: October 27, 2007, 05:11:03 pm »

Hi

The roadmap for SFML has been added to the website. You can now see what's planned for SFML : new features, improvements, bug fixes, ...

http://sfml.sourceforge.net/roadmap.php

83

General discussions / [Important] I need beta-testers for SFML

« on: September 21, 2007, 03:38:38 pm »

Hi !

In order to avoid the issue which happened with SFML 1.1 (some major bugs to fix quickly) in the future, I'd like to do some beta-tests before releasing any new version of SFML.

So, I'm looking for persons who :
- Would have enough free-time to test properly each new version of SFML
- Can use SVN to get and compile the SFML source code

Your help will be very precious and will help me to make SFML even better.

I you want to contribute, please answer to this post, and I'll contact you by PM.

Thank you

84

General discussions / SFML releases

« on: September 14, 2007, 05:02:41 pm »

SFML 1.1 is available

- Added : the Mac OSX port from Brad Leffler
- Added : the Ruby binding from Sean O'Neil
- Added : namespaces (now the SFML classes and functions are inside the sf namespace)
- Added : unicode support for String
- Added : a new sample (pong)
- Added : support for antialiasing
- Added : support for mouse wheel (Event::MouseWheelMoved)
- Added : more control over drawables size (added Sprite::Resize and made X and Y scales independant)
- Added : Window::SetPosition and RenderWindow::SetPosition
- Added : Window::SetFramerateLimit and RenderWindow::SetFramerateLimit
- Added : a "style" parameter to replace the "fullscreen" one on window creation, to have more control over the window style
- Added : GetDepthBits and GetStencilBits functions into RenderWindow
- Added : an optional target alpha value for Image::CreateMaskFromColor
- Added : the Key::Pause key

- Improved : the PostFX sample (now displays an error message if post-effects are not supported)

- Fixed : the bad behaviors with the mouse cursor in Windows
- Fixed : crashes on audio samples exit
- Fixed : images are no more flipped when saved to a file
- Fixed : SFML/Window.hpp now includes OpenGLCaps.hpp and glew.h
- Fixed : CMake files, Linux Makefiles and Code::Blocks project files

- Removed : an external dependency with GLEW in Linux

85

SFML projects / Goal and rules of this forum

« on: August 29, 2007, 02:43:05 pm »

Hi everybody

This forum has been created to talk about your projects using SFML, whether they are finished or not.

If you want to show your project, try to give as many details as possible : detailed description, how are you using SFML, screenshots, videos, demo, website, ...

Also, feel free to give your opinion about the other projects, and to share your experience about using SFML

The best projects will probably be shown in a future "projects page" on the website.

86

General discussions / Benchmark : SDL vs SFML

« on: August 28, 2007, 02:41:56 pm »

Hi everybody

A lot of people wonder how SFML compares to SDL, that's why I wrote a small benchmark to compare a few key features, mainly displaying sprites and text.

The tests consists of counting the number of frames rendered during 5 seconds :

1/ Displaying 2000 static sprites
2/ Displaying 2000 alpha-blended static sprites
3/ Displaying 2000 rotating sprites
4/ Displaying 20 lines of static text
5/ Displaying 20 lines of dynamic text

I used SDL_gfx for sprites rotations and SDL_ttf for displaying text. The latest versions of these libraries, as well as SDL, were used.

Source code + binaries + images + VS2005 files can be downloaded here :
http://sfml.sourceforge.net/temp/bench-sdl-sfml.zip (1.15 Mo)

Here are the results on a high configuration (AMD Athlon 64 DualCore 3800+, GeForce 7800 GT, 1 Go de RAM, Windows XP) :

Code: [Select]

1/ Test : sprites
SDL  displayed 9 frames
SFML displayed 303 frames
--> SFML is 3366% faster than SDL

2/ Test : alpha-blended sprites
SDL  displayed 5 frames
SFML displayed 216 frames
--> SFML is 4320% faster than SDL

3/ Test : rotating sprites
SDL  displayed 3 frames
SFML displayed 277 frames
--> SFML is 9233% faster than SDL

4/ Test : static text
SDL  displayed 416 frames
SFML displayed 6092 frames
--> SFML is 1464% faster than SDL

5/ Test : dynamic text
SDL  displayed 363 frames
SFML displayed 948 frames
--> SFML is 261% faster than SDL
Results on Linux with the same config are similar (a bit better for SFML).

Here are the results on a low configuration (Intel Pentium M 1.73 Ghz, integrated GPU Intel 915GM, 256 Mo de RAM, Windows XP) :

Code: [Select]

1/ Test : sprites
SDL  displayed 8 frames
SFML displayed 21 frames
--> SFML is 262% faster than SDL

2/ Test : alpha-blended sprites
SDL  displayed 5 frames
SFML displayed 21 frames
--> SFML is 420% faster than SDL

3/ Test : rotating sprites
SDL  displayed 2 frames
SFML displayed 15 frames
--> SFML is 750% faster than SDL

4/ Test : static text
SDL  displayed 885 frames
SFML displayed 774 frames
--> SFML is 13% slower than SDL

5/ Test : dynamic text
SDL  displayed 628 frames
SFML displayed 797 frames
--> SFML is 126% faster than SDL

As you can see SFML is faster than SDL, and it has to do with the use of OpenGL for getting hardware acceleration. Moreover, the 2D part of SFML has not been heavily optimized, and could be faster if needed.

If you have any question or suggestion about this benchmark, or any idea for something else to compare, feel free to discuss it here.