About FlegelX
FlegelX is a set of DirectX VCL components for Delphi. It's a wrapper around
DirectX and supports the most important DirectX objects for making 2D games.
The fact that FlegelX is a wrapper/componentset does not mean there is a (noticable)
speed-difference between applications made with components and applications without components
(everything from scratch with the JEDI-headers). I have experienced this myself.
Just my personal opinion: please forget doing everything from scratch with the JEDI-headers,
and thinking it will perform better. It does not (noticably) improve performance speed. It is
completely not worth all the work!
Main features of FlegelX
Graphics
- Drawing normal, stretched and (slow) alpha blending
- GDI-functions support (drawing text, rectangles, circles etc.)
Input
- Multiple joystick support, keyboard, mouse support
Sound
- Playing multiple sounds simultaneously
and control the sound properties line volume, frequency and panning
Timing
- High Performance timing with 2 possible timing-mechanisms
Sprite Engine
- 2D SpriteEngine which handles all the drawing, moving, animation,
clipping and collision detection.
This Engine makes creating 2D games a lot more easy.
General
- Easy and intuitive use of the components without having to know anything
about complex technical DirectX-details (all you need to know is in the documentation)
- FlegelX handles both old and new' DirectX versions automatically (till DirectX7)
and can potentially easily be extended to later DirectX versions,
except for the graphics-part, because it's DirectDraw based (2D DirectX graphics)
which will not be extended in the future by Microsoft (but will be supported in
future versions of Windows!).
Performance
I did some tests on different systems which give an indication of the
performance of FlegelX.
However, these tests are no more than just an indication and don't give any garantee for
other systems. Below are some test results of one of the testcomputers.
System:
- PIII 500
- Viper V770 32 MB video RAM
- 192 MB System RAM
- Soundblaster card
As for the graphics, I just loaded for about 32 MB of image-data (bitmaps) and tried
to draw with a different number of images a time (each frame) on the screen.
Drawing about 1 MB per frame: framerate about 82 fps (pretty normal case)
Drawing about 3 MB per frame: framerate about 76 fps
Drawing about 5 MB per frame: framerate about 55 fps
(Keep in mind that pixelcheck collision detection can have a big influence on the speed.)
In general, in most tests on Win98 I achieved a framerate of about 85 fps.
On Win2000 and XP, I achieved a framerate of about 75 fps. The videocard
is the most important factor for this graphics speed.
It absolutelly matters whether the images you draw, are fully visible on the
screen, partly visible, or not visible (which makes sence). Images who are drawn
outside the coordinates of the screen, aren't drawn at all and thus do not influence
the speed.
As for the sound, I just loaded for about 7 MB of sound data (PCM waves) and tried
to play several sounds at a time successfully.
