2009/1/25 Massimo Del Fedele max@veneto.com:
The engine is disabled by default; can be changed by environment
variable :
export WINEDIB=ON (or ENABLE or ENABLED or TRUE) enables it export WINEDIB=OFF (or DISABLE or DISABLED or FALSE) disables it
or by registry key :
HKCU/Software/Wine/DIB Engine/Enable='Y' enables it HKCU/Software/Wine/DIB Engine/Enable='N' disables it
the environment variable has precedence on registry, so for example if WINEDIB=ON and HKCU/Software/Wine/DIB Engine/Enable='N' the engine is enabled.
I suggest to use the environment for the moment, at less you have an app that runs much better with the engine (autocad, for example...) which benefits from a default enabled engine in registry.
I'm still opposed to adding an environment variable for something so simple (an enable/disable flag). It just seems like extra work for no benefit to me. I'm sure we can all agree that the registry is a suitable place for the setting.
Isn't the idea that the DIB engine will only be used as needed, and will be good in all cases where it's used? If that's the case, it's not too important having on-the-fly per-application enabling/disabling (whereas WINEDEBUG and WINEDLLOVERRIDES can be VERY useful).
Having an environment variable is a minor detail. Sure it should be used transparently but it will take a lot of time (when the architecture is correct) to enable it by default. A lot of performance tuning would be needed as it could seriously decrease performance in a lot of cases. The gain / loss depends on what type of calls the program is making. If it draws lets say on a line by line basis then software rendering could help. But if it uses a smarter method a single X call might be more efficient. Further there are also other tradeoffs e.g. when the latest version of the drawable is in X then it might not be smart at all to copy it back to the DIB engine and let it do the rendering just because we have a DIB engine. The cost for the download and reupload to the videocard might be much higher.
Roderick