Subject: REND386 and BC 3.0

From: Dave Stampe-Psy+Eng <dstamp@watserv1>
Date: Sat, 30 May 92 15:06:35 -0400

Well, I've been working with BC++ 3.0 and REND386.  I've had no problems 
linking up the devel2.zip at all, so those who have been experiencing
problems, try adding all the given C files into your project list as
well as the libraries.

Now, here's a wierd one:  REND386 will not function after the BC 3.0
IDE has run, unless you hard-reset the machine or use TD as well!  The
reason was finally traced to the IDE's remapping of the FS and GS
registers to flat memory mode.  Since the REND386 integer core also
uses these, and the IDE doesn't bother to clean up after itself, it
gets confused.  I had to rewrite the integer core so it didn't use 
these registers-- hopefully the speed reduction will be small.

Anyway, it just makes you wonder why Borland stuff gets flakey as the
version number increases.  

Other news: hopefully the next release will be out early next week.
I just finished upgrading the blitter libraries so they support
n-sided convex polys directly, which added another 10% to the overall
speed.  The 256-color color specifier (see the color256.c file for
this) now works for 16-color blits as well.  But the 16-color blitter
is now only 25%-30% faster than the 256 color... Is it worth continuing
to support, seeing the cost for 486/50's is plummeting?  I mean, spinning
the 512-poly demo at 26 fps...

Let me know if there's more trouble with linking, etc.

- Dave Stampe