Enabling an extension to work in HWA?

Hi Chaos,

I do not think that this extension need special HWA function. So did you try to build with HWA in edif and debug?
I tried with the DebugObject from Phi but it does not give a lot of information about the crash (just that it crashed on GenerateEvent in Edif.Runtime.cpp). It is better with the source code.

Did I understand correctly: Liji sent you the C++ code, did he?
If so, did you try to compile and debug with Visual Studio?
Without Visual Studio, I tried directly with MMF and the DebugObject from PHI but it does not help a lot o find the source of the crash.

Unfortunately there's no way to enable HWA support for the Pixel Object, unless someone would figure out how to access the Direct3D internals of MMF and then read directly from the pixel buffer...
I expected it to crash btw, any call to MMF's GetPixel() function on a HWA surface will crash.

Can't we make an implicit conversion through blitting on a DIB surface?

Well, you can't read from the screen from what I understand. It's a render target and you can't call any get functions on it. I have no idea how to access the texture behind it!

I thought about using GetRenderTargetSurface() as Andos did in Perspective extension:
LPSURFACE psw = WinGetSurface((int)rhPtr->rhIdEditWin);
ps = psw->GetRenderTargetSurface();

I had no idea that even existed, tbh.

Ok, I will try to make a minimal Pixel extension to check if I am correct. I will at least learn something new.

Good luck if this works out, I'll implement a way to access those render targets in Surface, allowing you to operate on them That'd be nice!

I managed to get it work for GetPixel thanks to Yves 2 days ago. But not in the way we want it with Looki. And I am still trying to make it work for SetPixel since it is also a part of this extension. If you only need GetPixel Chaos, I can give a special extension with only this Expression.

Could you share your results, conceptgame? Knowing Yves is a busy man I don't wanna have to ask him myself as well ;D

Yes of course. I tried as said above but I just got an empty surface. It did not crash, that was the good point.
The trick is to use one of the HWA texture which is created in the video memory. You blit the application surface to this temp surface and used it as base to blit on a DIB surface.
You can then call GetPixel.

COLORREF Extension::GetColor(int x, int y)
{
    fprh rhPtr = rdPtr->rHo.hoAdRunHeader;
    LPSURFACE ps = WinGetSurface((int)rhPtr->rhIdEditWin);
    int w = ps->GetWidth();
    int h = ps->GetHeight();
    if(renderSurf != NULL)
    {
        delete renderSurf;
        renderSurf = NULL;
    }
    LPSURFACE pProto1 = NULL;
    if (GetSurfacePrototype(&pProto1, ps->GetDepth(), ST_MEMORY, SD_DIB) )
    {    
        renderSurf = new cSurface;
        renderSurf->Create(w,h,pProto1);
    }
    
    LPSURFACE pSrcSf = ps;
    cSurface rttSf;
    int nDrv = ps->GetDriver();
    if ( nDrv == SD_D3D9 || nDrv == SD_D3D8 )
    {
        LPSURFACE pProto;
        GetSurfacePrototype(&pProto, ps->GetDepth(), [COLOR=#ff0000][B]ST_HWA_ROUTEXTURE[/B][/COLOR], nDrv);
        rttSf.Create(w,h, pProto);
        ps->Blit(rttSf, 0, 0, 0, 0, ps->GetWidth(),ps->GetHeight(), BMODE_OPAQUE);
        pSrcSf = &rttSf;
    }
    pSrcSf->Blit(*renderSurf);
    renderSurf->SaveImage("screen.png");
    pSrcSf->SaveImage("screen2.png");
    COLORREF color = renderSurf->GetPixelFast(x,y);
    return color;

My main concern is that this surface is slow writing according to comments, so it cannot really be used for what I thought.

ST_HWA_ROUTEXTURE,            // HWA texture created in video memory, unmanaged (lost when device is lost). Slow writing, should be treated read-only

Indeed, Yves is a busy man. I really need to to talk with him at the next convention to understand the whole surface topic. I hope he should come and have more time to explain.

Ohh, sorry. I didn't know you use a software fallback. I didn't even think about that, but yes I guess it's a bit slow. Probably still good enough if you only blit each frame (60 times a sec) and not on every get pixel call

Yes, it would allow you to get pixel colors at specific coordinates in both Standard and HWA.

Here it is: Please login to see this attachment.

There is no example or help file. I think it is obvious how the expressions can be used.