Notes for the Alpha Windows Mesa Driver
---------------------------------------
By: Mark E. Peterson (markp@ic.mankato.mn.us)
This driver written for Mesa 1.2.x. Also see the windows2/README file
for Mesa 2.0 information [-BP].
Introduction
------------
The Windows Mesa driver enables Mesa to run on all 32 bit incarnations of
Microsoft Windows. In addition, a Windows version of the TK package (which
also enables the aux package to function) is also provided.
Both RGB and indexed color models are supported.
I term the Windows functionality as "Alpha" because it has not been tested
to my satisfaction yet. Please, feel free to contact me regarding this
driver. I am also a member of the Mesa mailing list and will respond to
messages there.
Additional Software
-------------------
In order to compile and run Mesa applications you will need the Microsoft
WinG libraries. WinG is a free add-on to Windows that enables fast indexed
mode graphics programming. You can obtain WinG from the WINMM forum on
Compuserve or ftp.microsoft.com.
If you wish to run Mesa apps on Windows 3.x you will also need to obtain
Microsofts Win32s extension for Windows. Win32s is freely available many
places on the Internet and Compuserve.
Compiling Mesa and samples
--------------------------
The Windows version of Mesa was developed using Symantec C++ 7.0, the
Symantec projects and makefiles should be included with this distribution.
To compile Mesa for Symantec C++ open and build winmesa.prj, tk.prj,
glaux.prj, and winglu.prj all found in the \MESA\WINDOWS directory. These
projects will build static libraries which are linked in to the various
demo projects in the same directory.
Several (but not all) of the examples that ship with Mesa have been set up
and projects are supplied in this distribution. In general compile the
samples with the same settings as the libraries. Also if a sample is
animated you may need to insert a call to InvalidateRect (see
\mesa\demos\bounce.c).
The following #defines are used to compile the Windows version of Mesa.
__WIN32__ - Indicates compilation for 32 bit Windows.
__SYMANTEC_BUGS - The Symantec compiler appears to dislike files containing
only a global variable definition. This define gets us
around this bug. (see dd.c and vb.c)
At various times I have also had Mesa compiled with Borland C++ 4.5. For the
libraries, use the target expert to set up a WIN32, static library project.
For the demos use the target expert to set up WIN32 console mode apps.
Windows specific source files in the distribution
-------------------------------------------------
\mesa\src\wmesa.c
\mesa\include\gl\wmesa.h
\mesa\src-tk\tkwndws.c
To Do
-----
- Optimize the driver.
- Test
- Produce release versions of the makefiles
- Produce the static libs as DLLs (possibly as drop in replacements for the
NT OpenGL DLLs ???)
- Set up projects for the rest of the demos.
- Produce profile statistics vs. the NT implementation of GL.
- Look into hardware acceleration (e.g. Matrox Impression, Millenium).
These are the contents of the former NiCE NeXT User Group NeXTSTEP/OpenStep software archive, currently hosted by Netfuture.ch.