June 2007 - Fractdev - mailman.xmission.com

Paul?
by Richard 19 Nov '09

19 Nov '09

Hey, did Paul get CVS access? Paul, were you able to compile the branch with VC++ 2005 Express? I did put some tweaks in there to get everything to compile with no warnings on the Express edition. I haven't put a copy of VS.NET 2003 Academic Edition in the mail for you yet, but its coming... -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html> Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>

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Athlon woes
by Tim Wegner 02 Sep '08

02 Sep '08

I built a computer last year using an Athlon with a Gigabyte motherboard. I had troubles with Fractint - with any SVGA mode the computer would hang after the completion of the image. I always assumed this was an Windows XP issue. Today I tried Fractint with freedos on the same computer, with the same results. So apparently it's an incompatability bgetween fractint and my compuiter. Truecolor, 320x200, diskvideo, and even tweaked modes work. SCGA modes fail, and only after the image completes. This behavior appears to have nothing to do with recent versions. Has anyone else had trouble with Athlon? Hmm, maybe I need to look at bios settings. Tim

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PNG fRAC chunk (was [Fractdev] 6-bit to 8-bit color channels )
by Tim Wegner 24 Sep '07

24 Sep '07

Rich wrote: > I guess I'll have to wait until you expound upon this later, > though. My original idea (in broad terms) was this. 1. Define a number of "subchunks" for fRAc, and treat them a lot like PNG treats chunks, but inside fRAc. I doubt sunchunk is an official PNG idea, so we'd need to extend the PNG API for fRAc purposes. 2. Define separate subchunks for obvious data items like corners or center mag. As much as possible make these universal so other fractal programs could use them (not that we're going to drive what other prograns do any more). 3. Then there are bound to be other fractint-specific items, maybe a lot of them, that we can't avoid. Figure out how to deal with them. Maybe fRAc, or at least parts of fRAc, will be "Stone Soup" spefcific. This is just a start. No big rush because the GIF extension facility will work fine for a while. Tim

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sschoice.exe?
by Richard 30 Jun '07

30 Jun '07

What's it supposed to do? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html> Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>

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M_MATH
by Richard 26 Jun '07

26 Jun '07

Is this something that needs to be preserved? It currently depends on a bunch of assembly code and in the XFRACT code an 'MP' is just a double. I'm not sure what this is buying us, if anything, in a world where every x86 machine has an FPU. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html> Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>

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Qt vs. wxWidgets
by Richard 12 Jun '07

12 Jun '07

Well, I investigated this a little closer. Qt 4 open source edition can't be compiled out-of-the-archive with VS.NET. wxWidgets compiled and I was able to run an OpenGL sample quite easily. The wxWidgets license is more permissive (not that the license was an issue, but it doesn't hurt). Based on that, I'll be pursuing an eventual integration with wxWidgets. The near term will probably be a wxWidget control that implements a CGA color text screen. The existing code will all talk through that. Eventually the screens will be replaced with real dialogs and so-on. First I need to invert the control loop for the I/O from polling to event driven using the existing driver model. Woo hoo. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html> Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>

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<Tim>Is it unusual for a video card to not be able to...
by Hal Lane 11 Jun '07

11 Jun '07

Tim, Is it unusual for a video card to not be able to create successful video from the register values retrieved by MAKEFCFG.EXE? <---<< After a little trial and error I was able to run MAKEFCFG.EXE and put the new values into FRACTINT.CFG, but my Sony Trinitron monitor (branded by Dell) does not sync to the video, as it does when given video for these same resolutions by FRACTINT running on a different (older) machine. I eventually removed all the duplicate lines and blank lines and turned the spaces into tabs and lined up the columns of commas in FRACTINT.CFG so that FRACTINT would accept the file. The line lengths are all the same as or less than existing working lines. FRACTINT shows the new resolutions when the <del> key is pressed but the monitor either says "No Video" or "Out of Scan Range" when any of the new higher resolutions are chosen. The register values look similar to some other values used by other video cards, so the ones retrieved by MAKEFCFG.EXE are not totally off the wall. I put a copy of my VESA NVIDIA on-the-system-board graphics video chip values from my eMachines WinXP computer as determined by MAKEFCFG.EXE below. I was initially encouraged when I saw the values '4f02' and 28 being put into registers since those values were being use in other lines in FRACTINT.CFG -- lines that were supplied with the V 20.0 distribution. However, no joy. Any thoughts on what's going on would be appreciated. > Once you figure it [axis symmetry] out write it up > and we'll put it in the docs :-) Sure, no problem. Thanks for your explanation. > ...on my way to or from my mother's memorial service. I'm sorry to hear about your mother. - Hal Lane ######################### # hallane(a)earthlink.net # ######################### Here are 4 of my VESA NVIDIA on-the-system-board graphics values as determined by MAKEFCFG.EXE and a couple of lines from the original default V 20.0 file. I removed spaces and changed spellings in hopes of keeping the lines from wrapping during the posting process. key name of adapter/mode| AX | BX|C|D|md| x | y |clr| comments ================================================================== SF6 ,VESA Color Pal Mode,4f02,103,0,0,28, 800, 600,256,VESA NVIDIA SF7 ,VESA Color Pal Mode,4f02,105,0,0,28,1024, 768,256,VESA NVIDIA SF8 ,VESA Std interf ,4f02,106,0,0,28,1280,1024, 16,Chips&Tech SF9 ,VESA Color Pal Mode,4f02,107,0,0,28,1280,1024,256,VESA NVIDIA SF10,8514/A Low Res , 3, 0,0,1,12, 640, 480,256,HW/AI CF10,VESA Color Pal Mode,4f02,145,0,0,28,1600,1200,256,VESA NVIDIA ------------------------------------------------------------------ I was initially encouraged when I saw the same '4f02' values being put into AX in these V 20.0 supplied entries: ,VESA 5-5-5 True-Col,4f02,110,0,0,28, 640, 480,256, True-color ,VESA 5-6-5 True-Col,4f02,111,0,0,28, 640, 480,256, True-color ------------------------------------------------------------------

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Patch 6 to Fractint version 20.4
by Jonathan Osuch 09 Jun '07

09 Jun '07

Patch 6 to Fractint version 20.4 is now available on the Fractint Developer's web sites: www.fractint.org or www.fractint.net This is unrelated to Rich's port. What's new: Added Per Image Settings to the formula parser. When initially selected from the fractal type formula screen, the symmetry and any per image settings are enforced. The per image settings will be saved to PARs and GIFs, and can be changed from the appropriate screen. The possible values for per image settings are the same as the parameters that appear in PAR files, with the exception of 'params='. Params can't be set in the per image settings section, because they get set to zero when the formula is parsed. The formula syntax looks like this: mandel(symmetry)[per image settings] { per pixel settings: iteration bailout } For example: IslandOfChaos(XAXIS_NOPARM)[float=y function=sqr/sin/cosxx] {; Jonathan Osuch ; Generalized by Tobey J. E. Reed [76437,375] ; Try p1=0, p2=4, fn1=sqr, fn2=sin, fn3=cosxx ; Note: use floating point z = p1, x = 1: IF (x < 10) z=fn1(z) + pixel ELSE z=fn2(z) / fn3(z) + pixel ENDIF x = x+1, |z| <= p2 } Jonathan

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Qt GUI framework -- acceptable?
by Richard 09 Jun '07

09 Jun '07

Tim, please take a look here <http://trolltech.com/products/qt/> and at the licenses here: <http://trolltech.com/products/qt/licenses/licensing/licensingoverview> The license is GPL, which implies that FractInt would also be GPL. This looks like a good GUI library that would give us cross-platform GUI support on Windows, X11, MacOS, etc. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html> Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>

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