DP Tool Club 12/CD_ASCQ_12_0294.iso/ascanex/dfv.doc

Text File | 1993-10-07 | 6KB | 116 lines

                        DFV (Dave's Flic Viewer)
                          Rel 0.0.4 (09/30/93)
                   Copyright (c) 1993 by David K. Mason

  This is an alpha test version of my flic player, DFV.  DFV is
  supposed to be able to play .FLI, .FLC ,and .FLX animation files.
  Right now it's still pretty limited... It should be able to handle
  any .FLI you throw at it, but it can only handle certain resolutions
  of .FLC files: VGA and tweaked VGA resolutions 320x200, 320x240,
  320x400, 320x480, and 360x480. The only SVGA resolution it can
  handle so far is 640x480.  If you've got a VESA-compliant SVGA,
  it'll display it in 640x480, otherwise it'll fake it with the
  tweaked VGA 320x480 resolution.
  It can handle .FLX files up to 640x480, if you've got a VESA
  compliant hicolor SVGA or a hicolor SVGA board using the Tseng
  4000 chip.  (If the resolution is less than 640x480, then it'll
  display it in 640x480 mode.)

  Originally I released just a protected mode version of the program,
  because of the large amounts of memory required to load some
  flics.  But there's a problem with the protected mode version...
  while it can start up hicolor graphics mode fine on machines
  which have VESA in hardware, it chokes when trying to start
  hicolor mode when using some VESA TSRs.
  So, there are now two executables, DFV.EXE (real mode) and
  DFVX.EXE (protected mode).
  Because DFV.EXE can allocate less memory it often pauses to read
  pieces of a flic from disk.  You'll also run into pauses with
  DFVX if you play flics that are larger than 16MB... DFVX
  uses '286 protected mode, not '386 protected mode, so
  16MB is the max even if you've got more in your machine.
    DFVX requires RTM.EXE and DPMI16BI.OVL files from either the
  DTA archive or the DMorf archive.  When DFV goes "final", I'll
  include these files in the DFV archive.

Version History
---------------

Rel. 0.0.4 (09/30/93) -
 o Fixed a bug in the timer routines... if you typed DFV
   with no parameters to get the syntax, DFV forgot to
   turn off high-speed timing, and the system clock would
   go crazy, advancing a minute every few seconds.
 o Added direct support for TS4000 boards (hicolor only, so
   far) ... well, it works on the one I've tried it with, anyway.
   Hopefully it'll work on other folks' machines, too.
     Because it doesn't have to use real mode interrupts at all,
   it's faster than VESA and there don't seem to be the
   incompatibility problems I've run into using some VESA
   TSRs.
     Later on I plan to add TS4000 support for the 256-color SVGA
   modes, and also direct support for some other SVGA chipsets.
     (DFV seems to play .FLX files *lots* faster when using the
   TS4000 code... but this may be partly because I was using
   it on a '486 DX-50 with local bus video instead of a '486
   DX2-50 without local bus video.)
 o Added a /B command line switch, for specifying the number of
   64K buffers that DFV is allowed to try allocating...
   Unless told otherwise, DFV will allocate as many buffers as
   (1) it needs to hold the entire flic; and (2) are available.
   This can fill up memory real fast, so if you type
    dfv x.flc /b1
   DFV will only use up 64k for flic storage.
   Sometimes, when there isn't enough memory for a whole flic,
   there can be lengthy pauses when DFV stops to refill all
   the buffers with the next portion... the more buffers you
   use, the longer this pause will be.  If you use fewer buffers,
   there will be more pauses, but each one will be a lot shorter
   and less distracting.
 o Changed the keys for variable speed a bit... <2> now represents
   33 milliseconds per frame, which works out to about 30 frames
   per second (the speed of American television) and <3> now
   represents 42 milliseconds per frame, or about 24 frames per
   second (the speed of motion pictures).
   (FYI, <4> = 75, <5> = 125>, <6> = 175, <7> = 275, <8> = 375,
   and <9> = 500.  <1> still represents "as fast as possible",
   and <0> still represents whatever speed is built into the
   flic file.
Rel. 0.0.3 (09/17/93) -
 o Got flic speed working right in protected mode... I think.
   It messes with timing, but it looks like it sets it back
   to normal when it's finished playing.  I dunno, but this
   might cause problems with running DFV in a DOS window in
   Windows or OS/2.  Haven't had a chance to try it out.
 o Added variable speed based on keys 0-9, in a sleazy imitation
   of Trilobyte's PLAY program.
   1 sets speed to 0, the fastest that DFV can display a flic.
   2 through 9 slow the flic down in increments, with 9 being
     real slow.
   0 resets the speed to the speed from the file.
 o DFV was having problems playing some .FLX files produced
   by Tempra Turbo Animation... I think I've got this fixed.
 o Fixed a problem in the real mode version that made DFV display
   graphics in VESA modes *much* too slowly.  It was doing bank-
   switching calculations for every pixel when it didn't have
   to.
 o Got the protected mode version to play FLX files on a couple
   machines which had VESA TSRs instead of VESA hardware.
   Hey Dan R., does this work on yours?
 o DFV expected every palette chunk in a flic to have exactly
   256 colors in it... which was okay if it was playing a
   flic built with DTA, which always does, but was NOT okay
   for flics built in some other programs.
   Expanded the code to fully support partial and multiple
   color packets.
Rel. 0.0.2 (09/12/93) -
 o Split DFV into two versions: DFV (real mode) and
   DFVX (protected mode).
 o Fixed a problem with disk paging... whenever a flic
   was bigger than memory, it would crash when it finished
   playing the first chunk.
 o DFV couldn't play hicolor flics in resolutions other than
   640x480 correctly.  Now it can handle lower-res FLX files
   okay.
Rel. 0.0.1 (09/09/93) - Initial release