Implementing support for widescreen resolutions

[Knox]

For someone who doesnt know a thing about Allegro 5 and technical engine stuff...what can Allegro 5 actually do (other than bigger resolutions) to make AGS better? Will the alpha problems/work arounds for gui's/buttons we have now be fixed...faster drawing/frame rates, better video support, etc?

[Calin Leafshade]

basically it's just faster and has hardware acceleration.

All the things you mentioned are perfectly possible to fix in the current version of allegro. CJ just hasnt got around to it.

The main reason for the proposed change is better cross-platform support i believe.

[Pumaman]

Allegro 4 is perfectly capable of higher resolutions, and AGS already has its own Direct3D driver to provide hardware acceleration.

So I think we'd need to take a close look to see if moving to Allegro 5 would actually provide any benefit.

[Calin Leafshade]

I agree with CJ

Allegro five is a *complete* redesign of the library. It would not be a trivial task to change it.

The only positive development i can see is the default hardware acceleration but as CJ said, AGS has that covered.

[Electroshokker]

Instead of going to 5, look at upping from allegro 4.2 to 4.4 (stable branch), which adds OpenGL support and is completely backwards compatible with 4.2

(Proof: In the latest Linux builds I'm using a statically linked 4.4)

Best thing for the engine is for the code to receive a nice makeover to better programming practices. And some proper documentation. (I can assist a little, since I've been tinkering with the Linux build for quite a while now)

[subspark]

The only positive development i can see is the default hardware acceleration but as CJ said, AGS has that covered.

The main reason for the proposed change is better cross-platform support i believe.

Heh? Which one are we going with here A, B or A+B?