On Mon, 3 Jul 2000, John Burtt wrote:
> In response to my Transparent GIF question, Kevin Miller wrote:
> >
> >...Are you using the very latest build of MetaCard on NT?
>
> I'm currently using Build #7 of Version 2.3.1, but the stand-alone
> was built a couple of builds ago. Can't tell exactly which one.
>
> >If you're using the latest engine and you have a reproducable of the
> >problem please send a copy of the image to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> Done.
> >
> >And Scott Raney wrote:
> >
> >Sounds like a driver bug, a problem which is astoundingly (and
> >annoyingly) common on Win32 systems. Check the WWW site of the vendor
> >of the graphics card and make sure you have the latest drivers. If
> >that doesn't fix the problem, open the Display control panel and set
> >acceleration to its lowest level. This will force the driver to use
> >software to do the drawing rather than the hardware, which eliminates
> >these problems in all cases we know of.
>
> I realize that I should try this in order to find the cause of the
> problem but I don't have a machine running NT of my own. I was
> demonstrating my program for a potential customer on their machine.
> It just doesn't seem right to tell them their machine needs updating.
> It would seem to me that if I advertise that my application will run
> on NT, it should do just that, whether their machine has the latest
> upgrades or not.
Ha! If only the world were such a perfect place. Actually your
belief that it should just work would be justified if you were
distributing your work only on UNIX workstations, or for the most part
on Macs. But Windows is a whole 'nother can of worms.
I still can't figure out why when people buy a Yugo and "save" lots of
money that it's obvious to everyone that they've been had, yet when
people buy some piece of crap PC with a 2 dollar graphics chip
soldered onto the motherboard that people think they got a good deal.
For example, last week I helped debug a problem where a program
wouldn't install on a friend's PC because it required 64MB RAM, but
that system only had 62MB, according to Windows. 62 MB?!?!? Couldn't
figure that one out until I opened it up and found that it didn't even
have a graphics card and was using system memory for the frame buffer!
The time we wasted just on that one problem was worth vastly more than
the 50 bucks it would have cost to outfit the system with a decent
graphics card in the first place.
WRT cheap PCs that have no-name graphics chips with poorly written
drivers, we developers are basically in the position of being stuck
behind a broken down Yugo on the highway. There ain't a whole hell of
a lot we can do until they either get out of the way, or fix the thing
so that it works again. I wouldn't lose any sleep over the suffering
of the "drivers" of these PCs: they're used to things not working and
requiring them to make special efforts to run your program isn't an
unreasonable request.
> Thanks for your help. I think I will begin re-designing my
> application without Gif's containing transparent backgrounds. At
> least untill I can get this figured out.
Unless you're sure that upgrading the driver on that NT box won't fix
the problem, I'd recommend against this approach. Crippling your
application to make it work on buggy systems is roughly akin to
lowering the highway speed limit to 30 mph so that the Yugos out there
won't have to work so hard to keep up ;-)
Regards,
Scott
PS: He sent me the image, and as expected it worked fine on my NT box.
Mine has an ATI card in it, and while ATI has shipped their fair share
of buggy drivers (including the ones on the Windows 98 distribution
CD), they always *eventually* seem to get it right...
PPS: Watch out! I heard they're making Yugos again!
> John
********************************************************
Scott Raney [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.metacard.com
MetaCard: You know, there's an easier way to do that...
Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/
Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
