BE>I am looking for any information from anyone who has used the DIVE
BE>library for writing directly to OS/2.  It just occurred to me that
BE>this might meet the requirements for a video interface we have at
BE>work.  The questions I have are:

BE>1) Is it still device independent or do I have to write code for each
BE>video card?

It is device independant provided your card's drivers support it - I
haven't heard of any that don't since DIVE is used by OS/2's video
stuff.  You have to handle 8, 16 or 24 bit color yourself. So for 8
bit, you have to do palette mapping (16 or 24, you just write the RGB
values to RAM yourself.)

BE>2) How fast is it?  I need to plot information from a real-time device
BE>that is attached to a person and be able to keep up with the data feed
BE>as well as provide the information to the user.  (I know, multiple
BE>threads, but if the information gets to the display 30 seconds after I
BE>write it, it is of no use.)

I tried the timing demo in DLIB06.ZIP (which is a straight bitmap copy)
on my 486-66 with ET4000W32i card and got around 25FPS at 800x600x256,
about 200FPS in a 1/8 screen window - it is fast enough.  It is WAY
faster than anything you can do in PM.

BE>3) How does it work in terms of living within a PM window?  Is it easy
BE>to get this to happen?

I have only used DIVE version 1.0.  There is apparently a DIVE 2.0
coming in OS/2 3.0 that has bitmap scaling, palette handling and other
cool stuff built in.  DIVE 1 just gives you access to the video buffer.
You can happily write ontop of any point on the screen whether you own
it or not.  You have to calculate where your window is in the video
buffer (not too hard) then only draw in that spot, and then suspend it
when it is in the background or otherwise deal with windows that overlap
yours. Get DIVE.ZIP for a DIVE sample program.

Rob.
___
 X SLMR 2.1a X Yield to temptation, it may not pass your way again.

--- Maximus/2 2.01wb