On Tue, Dec 03, 2002 at 03:18:26PM -0800, Allen Akin wrote: > On Tue, Dec 03, 2002 at 03:42:06PM -0700, Nicholas Leippe wrote: > | I guarantee you that the only thing truly knowledgeable enough to make such > | tradeoffs is the user at the keyboard, not the programmer writing the > | application somewhere else on different hardware with different tastes. > > Maybe I wasn't clear, but I didn't intend to suggest that users not be > allowed to control the behavior of their apps. My point was that the > "knobs" have to be provided by the apps, not by some library- or > system-level feature that completely works around the apps. There's no > point in the system other than the app with enough information to make > sensible tradeoffs. The crude low-level controls we were talking about > when we started this thread (texel size, for example) fall way short of > providing enough control to be worth the time required to code, > document, and maintain them. And they're likely to become obsolete > before too long. > > Think about the way the Quake engine provides controls. That's the > right model, not environment variables or global configuration files > that silently affect all OpenGL-based applications whether appropriate > or not.
Now that you mention Quake, let me mention one of my Quake-on-Linux pet peeves. On Windows, I can go into the OpenGL tuning app for my driver and click 'force anisotropic filtering.' Since this extension was created AFTER Quake, there's NO WAY to enable it from Quake. In Linux I get tough cookies, but on "that other" operating system I get anisotropic filtered goodness. Which do YOU think is the better user experience? The problem is that for some knobs (like ones created after the apps), the only place where they can possibly be turned is at the system level. Users pretty much never like the "tough cookies" answer. :) -- Smile! http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap990315.html ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Visual Studio.NET comprehensive development tool, built to increase your productivity. Try a free online hosted session at: http://ads.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/redirect.pl?micr0003en _______________________________________________ Dri-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dri-devel
