Anticipating issues on old computer

#1

Hello,

I need to support an old computer: windows XP embedded. I know…I know. :sweat:

So I would like to know some things in order to anticipate potential issues for the project.

  • is there an openfl command to check if opengl is supported and which version?
  • do I need to use Angle?
  • do I need --window-hardware=false?
  • is there a specific version of openfl/lime to use?
  • do I need to rebuild lime dll from windows xp?

Thanks.

#2

Sometimes, we lose Windows XP support in the process of updating Lime. I can’t test Windows XP, but last I checked, it did work. I’m not sure, though, without someone testing a recent version and confirming.

Driver support tends to be poor on older hardware, so it isn’t an XP thing (regarding GL drivers) but just something that likely goes with the territory. We attempt to automatically detect when the driver is not going to support the GL version and fallback to software. We don’t officially support ANGLE at the moment, but that can sometimes work better for older hardware, if software runs too slowly.

Try doing a C++ build for Windows, and copying it to the machine and see if it works. Start with a simple sample

#3

Ok thank you. I’ll make some test and post here my results.

#4

Hello,
I’ve finally succeeded to build for this old xp computer.
I need to combine ANGLE + software and install DirectX9 and Microsoft Visual C++ 2010. Flixel failed completely to render with ANGLE so I will totally removed flixel from my project.

So now I have a question about software rendering. Do you have any advice to have good performance on software mode (using display list, using bliting, etc.)?

#5

Can you use ANGLE with the GL renderer? Is there an issue with that?

#6

Does ANGLE work on XP? According to this it’s no longer supported.

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/angleproject/1o7L4Ju2E0M

So only options for windows are raw OpenGL (without ANGLE) and software renderer. OpenGL does not work on XP if no driver that supports OpenGL 2.x (or above) is installed. Even if it’s installed, things may not work as expected because of poorer OpenGL support, as singmajesty mentioned.

#7

Some test I’ve made:

OpenGL hardware and software =>
2 errors:
The procedure entry point _except_handler4_common could not be located in the dynamic link library msvcrt.dll
Null function pointer

ANGLE hardware =>
2 errors:
The procedure entry point strnlen could not be located in the dynamic link library msvcrt.dll
Shader isn't initialized

ANGLE software =>
it’s working!

What do you mean? Do you want me to try with an OpenGLView like HerokuShader sample?
EDIT: I tried Heroku on ANGLE and I have a white screen.

Best method for rendering vector graphic with software mode
#8

OpenAL has #define HAVE_STRNLEN, which might be related to the ANGLE hardware issue there

#9

What version of Windows is this? I think that ANGLE does not support Windows XP, which might be the issue?

#10

Windows XP without OpenGL support. It seems that only ANGLE + software is working.
I must confess that today I’ve got a black screen for an unknown reason after few seconds. But my last version of my app is working great (except low fps). So I guess the black screen is here for a reason (too many objects at the same time? too much cpp use?..).

Maybe there is a way to add OpenGL support to this computer. But as far as I remember I already tried.