On Sat, Jan 17, 2004 at 06:29:46PM +0100, Frank Barknecht wrote: > Hallo, > Steve Harris hat gesagt: // Steve Harris wrote: > > > True enough :) but I think it takes a reasonable ammount of talent to make > > really intuative and compact UIs (screen realestate is an issue) even if > > if doesnt have a photorealistic interface. Theres a loopbased performace > > instrument that I think is a really good example (I cant remeber its > > name), > > Ableton Live, maybe? It has a exceptionally well thought out > interface, IMO.
Yes, that's it. > Regarding OpenGL: Although this could be a nice API for doing all > kinds of interfaces, the hardware side on Linux is looking > increasingly worse because of the XFree86 peoples' decision to go > modular and allow closed source drivers for DRI. Now we're in a > situation, where only old chipsets like Matrox G550 or incapable ones > like the Intel graphics chips have open source Open GL drivers. Nvidia > OTOH does provide decent drivers but they are closed source and > reportedly also could have a bad impact on audio performance. Even > most newer ATI cards don't have open source OpenGL drivers anymore, > although there are efforts to write some. I think the "one step down from top of the range" ATI cards are supported, and the NVIDIA drivers dont have any impact on latency, though the are partly binary, yes. > All this is really a problem to be considered when deciding to base a > GUI on Open GL. In most (audio) cases a 2D-interface would suffice, > I'm sure. Thge UI is 2D (you turn off perspective before you draw), its just a way of loading all the images and stuff onto the card, and making it do the drawing maths. It saves a /lot/ of cpu. Its more-or-less how the latest OSX GUI code works, and its very efficient. - Steve
