February 2008 - Fractdev - mailman.xmission.com

Paul?
by Richard 20 Nov '09

20 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 03 Sep '08

03 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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<Richard>I don't understand usage of some of the new FRACTINT.CFG file
by Hal Lane 21 Feb '08

21 Feb '08

Richard, These are minor items in Fractint for Windows beta 5, but are possibly features that are behaving differently than intended. In the FRACTINT.CFG file, when I tried to add the phrase: square pixels (as a comment to the F2, F3, etc. lines) between the pair of commas in: 256,,gdi in some of the rows, as follows: 256,square pixels,gdi I was trying to follow the 'instructions' of the column headings: |clr| comments | driver When I do the above the comment phrase: square pixels does *not* appear in Fractint for Windows beta 5's screen that lists resolution choices brought up by the <del> key. Is this a problem? <---<< The comments from the DOS FRACTINT.CFG file are listed in DOS Fractint's list of resolutions screen. I also noticed that you list the order of columns in the Fractint for Windows list of resolutions screen as: .colr.driver......comment... with the order of the driver and comment reversed from the FRACTINT.CFG file. This may or may not be as you intended it. Interestingly, when I added a couple of Win32 Disk Video lines that ended like this: 19, 2048, 1536,256,(1024x768*2),disk and this: 19, 4096, 3072,256,(1024x768*2),disk the list of resolutions *did* show the: (1024x768*2) So, the comment feature of the FRACTINT.CFG file works for some lines and not for others. Note: the two lines (above) had no key associated with them. (Their definition lines started with leading spaces and a leading comma.) These above added disk resolutions create the intended files OK - with the correct resolutions. Its great to still be able to add arbitrary resolutions. I sometimes calculate images at higher resolutions than I want for the final image. I then 'downsample' the higher resolution image with bicubic sampling to get a more anti-aliased version for the final image. I realize that this methodology can be problematical when applied to fractals, but has worked well for the particular fractals I have used it on. Also, I found that the line in FRACTINT.CFG defining: F9 ... 1280, 960,256, does *not* appear in the Fractint for Windows screen that lists resolution choices when I am using 1280x1024. It *does* appear when I increase my screen resolution to 1600x1200. You apparently interrogate the current screen resolution to see if it will support each Win32 GDI Video resolution in the FRACTINT.CFG file plus its containing window border. Very nice. I note that there are also at least two resolutions shown - 480 x 360 (disk & video) and 1500 x 1125 (disk) - in the Fractint for Windows resolutions screen table that are *not* in the FRACTINT.CFG file. I guess I don't know where the 480 x 360 and 1500 x 1125 pixel resolutions come from or why some comments in the FRACTINT.CFG file appear and others don't. - Hal Lane ######################### # hallane(a)earthlink.net # #########################

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Re: New substantially improved version
by Jonathan Osuch 20 Feb '08

20 Feb '08

Jean-Pierre, > > 1) I left out your popup window (in encoder.c) because I do not want to > > check for NCURSES in the common directory. I like the idea and there > > may be a way to do this strictly from the code in the unix directory. > > Don't know if this is doable - but let me think about it ! We can code texttempmsg() and stopmsg() as popup windows in Xfractint, and then #ifndef XFRACT out the versions in realdos.c. Jonathan

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<Richard> Q's re Fractint for Windows
by Hal Lane 18 Feb '08

18 Feb '08

Richard, > > Is the latest [beta] still: FractIntSetup-21.00.beta5.msi ? > Yes Thanks for the confirmation. I just installed this and I am very impressed with its behavior. Thanks for all your work! I really agree with your approach of keeping the DOS user interface and restructuring the fractal code for Windows as the first step towards a full migration of DOS Fractint to Windows. I was surprised (looking in Task Manager) at how little of my CPU was being used (and how it varied between fractals) when calculating some of the parm file fractals included in your distribution. [Its certainly pleasant not to have the DOS keyboard read routines not continuously sniffing at my fingers in your Windows beta!] What currently determines how much of the CPU is given to the calculation of a fractal? <---<< > I won't release another version until I've fixed a bug in the formula > rendering that keeps giving a light red screen for certain formulas. When I took a quick look at the formula parser some time ago, I was pretty intimidated. The parser looked like an ad hoc design approach, rather than an automatically generated parser, like lex and yacc. I guess if the formula parser code is still the original code, that something like the changed #includes and/or data typing and it passing must be the source of the problem. The fact that the bug in the formula rendering keeps giving a consistent symptom (a light red screen) should hopefully help in the eventual diagnosis of the problem. You may want to delete or update Jonathan's ReadMe.txt file in your next beta since it describes the DOS version. I note that you changed the keys that encode different screen resolutions from the original encodings. So far that has only impacted my SSTOOLS.INI file. It could also affect .BAT files that include a screen resolution change. I guess I'm working my way around to asking whether it could be useful to have the keys that encode screen resolutions be the same as the default DOS encodings... Do you have a web page where you collect the issues/bugs that people report or that you are working on -- beyond the items listed in the BUGS.txt file included in your distribution? I don't want to report any items that have already been reported, or reported and fixed like: <---<< > <\> or <h> or <ctrl-h> just redraws the current image Fixed in beta 6 - Hal Lane ######################### # hallane(a)earthlink.net <mailto:hallane@earthlink.net> # ######################### > -----Original Message----- > From: fractdev-bounces(a)mailman.xmission.com > [mailto:fractdev-bounces@mailman.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Richard > Sent: Saturday, February 16, 2008 8:40 PM > To: Fractint developer's list > Subject: Re: [Fractdev] What is the latest version of Richard's > 'Fractint forWindows'? > > In article <MDBBJLBFBICIIEIHFBMEAECNDFAA.hallane(a)earthlink.net>, > "Hal Lane" <hallane(a)earthlink.net> writes: > > > Is the latest still: FractIntSetup-21.00.beta5.msi ? > > Yes > > I won't release another version until I've fixed a bug in the formula > rendering that keeps giving a light red screen for certain formulas. > --

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What is the latest version of Richard's 'Fractint for Windows'?
by Hal Lane 17 Feb '08

17 Feb '08

What is the latest version of Richard's 'Fractint for Windows'? On 2007-05-10 Richard posted to [Fractdev]: "Yes, beta 5 is the most current." Is the latest still: FractIntSetup-21.00.beta5.msi ? If not, what is the latest version and where can I get it? Thanks, - Hal Lane ######################### # hallane(a)earthlink.net # #########################

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