BlitzMax on an iBook - Graphics bombs out

Hi folks. I happily purchased my copy of BlitzMax yesterday as soon as I heard it had become available. It looks cool so far. It runs fine on my G4 1Mhz iMac/iLamp.

However, it doesn't run fine on my G3 300Mhz IBook. There's plenty of memory (288mb) and it's not a speed issue.

The following program:

Graphics 800,600

(or even, 640,480 - these are the standard resolutions for the ibook)

bombs out with the following error:

"Unable to calculate tex size", and the console window reports:

Compiling:untitled1.bmx
Linking:untitled1.debug
Executing:untitled1.debug
Unhandled Exception: Unable to calculate tex size
AdjustTexSize [$BMXPATH/mod/brl.mod/glmax2d.mod/glmax2d.bmx;114;27]
CreateFromPixmap [$BMXPATH/mod/brl.mod/glmax2d.mod/glmax2d.bmx;189;3]
CreateFrameFromPixmap [$BMXPATH/mod/brl.mod/glmax2d.mod/glmax2d.bmx;350;3]
Load [$BMXPATH/mod/brl.mod/max2d.mod/image.bmx;42;3]
CreateDefault [$BMXPATH/mod/brl.mod/pixmap.mod/pixmap.bmx;121;3]
Graphics [$BMXPATH/mod/brl.mod/max2d.mod/max2d.bmx;127;2]
untitled1 [$BMXPATH/tmp/untitled1.bmx;1;1]

Sooooooooooooo .... It will actually open the graphics screen which turns to black, but immediately after that it bombs out with this error. I also tried the short opengl example on the blitzmax products page of this website. The "bgl createcontext 640,480" does work but there is no graphics output and no sign of a triangle.

I am a previous user of Blitz on the Amiga, but otherwise a newbie with BlitzMax. If anyone could help me figure out the problem and how to fix it that'd be great. I don't think it's a problem with finding case-sensitive files. Maybe it's an opengl issue with the ibook?

Hmm.... going by a lead from the pearpc discussion, I tried the graphics in windowed mode by setting the depth to 0... ie

Graphics 640,480,0

And it works fine! Also, the sample programs now work fine if I make sure it opens in window mode.

Sadly to say it is generally very slow on this ole computer - 1fps?

But... the question remains, why does blitzmax bomb out in the full screen mode?

I've only ever gotten that error when I asked BlitzMAX to open a screen of a size the graphics chip couldn't handle.

Not that it's any help to your current situation but, what kind of graphics chip is in a 300Mhz iBook, anyway?

i can't tell you for sure what kind of GFX chip that iBook has, but i'm pretty sure that's the problem. i'm *sure* it doesn't even support quartz extreme, am i right?

also, just for fun, try compiling something on your iLamp and then run that on the iBook....oh, and i would compile without debug info.

just a try :)

Well, the graphics card is an ATI Rage Mobility L. It has 4MB video ram. It can do 800,600 and 640,480 in 32bit, 16bit and 256 colors. I am running on osX Panther 10.3.6.

?????? I will try the compilation on the other machine and see if it runs here.

I tried running the fireworks demo program binary as copied over from the imac (where it works - both the debug and non-debug versions) .. and both of them bomb out on the ibook.

I don't know if that really proves anything though.

I ran the OpenGL Driver Monitor tool which is in the Developer/Graphics Tools/ folder as part of the XCode installation, and when looking through the OpenGL info where it lists what features are supported by this implementation of OpenGL, it does say "No" against "Full Screen". It has yes for things like off-screen and window, however, which would see to fit with what I am experiencing.

It could be that it's nothing to do with Blitz at all, and rather that this ibook's OpenGL cannot do OpenGL in full screen mode. But that's pretty weird because I have run openGL screensavers in full screen mode on this computer with no problem?????

That driver monitor also says there is no hardware acceleration. Agh! I don't know if thats really true. the Open gl is certainly slow on this ibook but I thought it at least had some hardware 3d capacity.

The opengl screen saver "snowsaver" works fine in full screen mode on this computer, so I dont know why blitzmax doesn't.

Perhaps rather than going into official full screen mode that screensaver is opening a window that covers the entire screen?

But then, what is the difference?

the difference goes back to the amount of video ram you have. If it's windowed you use the video buffer that the desktop already has setup.

AD, have you tried seeing what GraphicsModeExists makes of these display modes?

i was right, it's your video card.

@BlitzSupport: maybe you guys should post the requirements for quartz extreme. why? because that means *full* opengl support under osx.

From Apple's website:
Quartz Extreme functionality is supported by the following video GPUs: NVIDIA GeForce2 MX, GeForce3, GeForce4 MX, or GeForce4 Ti or any AGP-based ATI RADEON GPU. A minimum of 16MB VRAM is required

i guess this particular ibook runs older versions of opengl just fine, not the 1.2 API used for bmax.

Well it's good to know what all the reasons for things are, to bear in mind when targetting an audience and having a minimum spec requirement. I don't think the ibook has Quartz Extreme - not just from the requirements mentioned but because the osX desktop on that ibook is not very quick and certainly nothing that looks like it would be hardware accelerated - judging by the fact that the 3D "Bugdom" game that comes with it runs at a respectable framerate using the 3D hardware.

Do you think it's possible to install OpenGL 1.2 drivers or whatever to the ibook or would it have to be part of osX?

Also to the Blitz team ... is it possible to have BlitzMax somehow find a way to support the older implementation of OpenGL ie like on my ibook? Obviously it is mostly supported already because I can run Max2D and such in a window, but just not the fullscreen.??