Author Topic: SFML / Performance in VirtualBox (Read 8081 times)

purestrain · « **on:** June 30, 2008, 12:56:19 pm »

Hello,

I've recently found SFML. Currently i'm using SDL (Bindings for D) and i'm planning to switch to SFML (again D Binding), but when will the Binding be ready? I didn't found something to download.

Second: How is the performance in Virtual Box? I mean, since SFML uses OpenGL, i think it will be much slower. Am i right?

Greetings

Laurent · « **Reply #1 on:** June 30, 2008, 02:35:02 pm »

Quote

I've recently found SFML. Currently i'm using SDL (Bindings for D) and i'm planning to switch to SFML (again D Binding), but when will the Binding be ready? I didn't found something to download.

In a couple of days. If you want you can already get it from SVN.

Quote

Second: How is the performance in Virtual Box? I mean, since SFML uses OpenGL, i think it will be much slower. Am i right?

Sorry, I don't know much about Virtual Box.

tgm · « **Reply #2 on:** June 30, 2008, 08:40:06 pm »

yeap.. since VirtualBox doesn't use the GPU SFML will be way slower... :lol:
moste likly SDL will be faster...

Wizzard · « **Reply #3 on:** July 01, 2008, 06:33:00 am »

How does VirtualBox change the performance of SFML?

Without using VirtualBox, SFML is in fact faster than SDL because SFML takes advantage of the GPU.

Xylankant · « **Reply #4 on:** July 01, 2008, 07:52:00 pm »

Quote from: "Wizzard"

How does VirtualBox change the performance of SFML?

Without using VirtualBox, SFML is in fact faster than SDL because SFML takes advantage of the GPU.

You can answer that yourself

SFML takes advantage of the GPU, however, VirtualBox won't let SFML use these advantages.

Wizzard · « **Reply #5 on:** July 01, 2008, 08:27:51 pm »

So what advantage does this give SDL over SFML?

If SFML can work at all while it can't use the GPU, it'd be rendering in a software mode, which would just lower it to SDL's level of performance (assuming that the OpenGL implementation is as optimized as SDL).

It probably is faster with SDL, I trust you guys, but I'm just trying to understand it better.

Xylankant · « **Reply #6 on:** July 01, 2008, 08:36:01 pm »

Well, problem is how extensive SFML makes use of the GPU to increase performance.
I don't know about that issue, but if SFML's increase in performance over SDL is heavily GPU-related and it is not that optimized for CPU, maybe SDL has a better rate on CPU-usage only.

However, I'm not really on the inside of SFML, so I can only guess which API is slightly more performant, using a VirtualBox.

Wizzard · « **Reply #7 on:** July 01, 2008, 08:55:25 pm »

Alright, thanks for the info.

kullerhamPster · « **Reply #8 on:** May 05, 2009, 09:08:06 pm »

Sorry for pushing that one up again, but I thought it would be worth discussing the VirtualBox-question again, as VirtualBox now supports hardware-accelerated OpenGL for guest operating systems.

However, I tried it out and found that my simple SFML-application runs extremly slow. Has anyone else tried SFML in VirtualBox with OpenGL-support enabled?

Tank · « **Reply #9 on:** May 05, 2009, 11:12:36 pm »

VirtualBox supports OpenGL? Uh, have to check that out.

kullerhamPster · « **Reply #10 on:** May 09, 2009, 03:54:23 pm »

Quote from: "Tank"

VirtualBox supports OpenGL? Uh, have to check that out.

Yeah, since version 2.0 or so, I guess. It was only for Windows-guests in the first release (if I remember correctly), but now (since 2.2?!) it should also work with Linux guests.

I'm not sure if it's still beta.