will löve 0.9.0 support canvas in all systems?

[jjmafiae]

i saw this line in the löve 0.9.0 changelog

Updated Canvas code to support more systems.

does that mean we will get canvas for pretty much all computers?

[raidho36]

No. Devices whose video cards don't support offscreen surfaces won't have canvases. It's a hardware thing.

[jjmafiae]

No. Devices whose video cards don't support offscreen surfaces won't have canvases. It's a hardware thing.

aww, canvas would have been good though.

[DaedalusYoung]

No. Devices whose video cards don't support offscreen surfaces won't have canvases. It's a hardware thing.

I don't get it though. I can create a newImage, which essentially to me is an offscreen surface. That works fine. What's so special about Canvases that older cards don't get?

Also, why does my computer from 1983 support several screen states (essentially canvases as well), but my computer from 2006 cannot do this anymore? What manufacturers went insane and thought nobody needed offscreen surfaces anymore?

[raidho36]

which essentially to me is an offscreen surface

No. Offscreen surfaces (render targets) and texture objects are very different in terms of hardware. Video buffers (including surfaces) are made in expensive lightning-fast SRAM chips whereas genreal memory uses cheap but ultra-slow DRAM chips memory. Older video cards have very few SRAM chips, they have barely enough memory to store double-buffered higher resolution picture, so they can't have offscreen surfaces. SRAM is pretty much mandatory for render targets because DRAM scanout from there would take much more time, order of several magnitudes, so these objects would need to be placed to SRAM chips which is an extra overhead on top of slower general RAM overall. And of course older video cards simply won't support that.

Also, why does my computer from 1983 support several screen states (essentially canvases as well), but my computer from 2006 cannot do this anymore? What manufacturers went insane and thought nobody needed offscreen surfaces anymore?

Did it had a GPU? Because in software, anything is easily possible.

[Boolsheet]

What manufacturers went insane and thought nobody needed offscreen surfaces anymore?

Intel.

I don't think the problem was about performance, but something else. Why focus too much on OpenGL if you really want to please the Direct3D people? Of course we would have to ask intel themselves why they didn't put any effort into the OpenGL driver back then.

[jjmafiae]

What manufacturers went insane and thought nobody needed offscreen surfaces anymore?

Intel.

I don't think the problem was about performance, but something else. Why focus too much on OpenGL if you really want to please the Direct3D people? Of course we would have to ask intel themselves why they didn't put any effort into the OpenGL driver back then.

can we hack the intel driver and make it better? or maybe hijack intel HQ?

[DaedalusYoung]

Did it had a GPU? Because in software, anything is easily possible.

It used a Yamaha V9938 video chip.

[jjmafiae]

are there other companies who make GPU's?

[Jasoco]

I still don't understand how an integrated graphics card (Like the HD4000 in my MacBook Air and the HD3000 in my last one) can support dozens upon dozens of canvases and canvases up to 4096x4096, but a lot of more expensive gaming cards still can't. Is there a reason it's not somewhat standardized these days? Is it a driver problem or something to do with the chips on the boards?

My integrated cards are Intel by the way.