On Tue, 3 Dec 2002, Brian Paul wrote:
>
> Otherwise, by using a generic format like GL_RGB the user is indicating
> that he doesn't especially care. In this case, I think the driver should
> lean toward the higher quality texture formats.
Why? I don't understand this reluctance to just admit that the _user_ may
be right.
The fact is, people _want_ to be able to set their settings to match their
preferences. And they may well know better than the GL libraries or the
program, since they can actually judge a lot better. It's not just about
"32-bit is better quality", it's also "16-bit may perform a lot better".
It's just something that the libraries _cannot_ know. It's fundamentally a
user preference issue.
Sure, you could say that every program should just specify the hinting
itself, but let's face it - it's inconvenient for programmers to have to
have the setup screens (_especially_ since the settings will depend on
what the card is), but it's also supremely inconvenient for users to have
to set settings in 10 different programs in 10 different ways.
In short, the only sane remaining thing to do is to have environment
variables. Arguing against them is just not very clever.
(Sure, you could have a config file, but that sucks too - different
programs almost certainly want different settings. Some games need to have
less detail to be playable, others want to be cranked up to full
settings.)
So let's hear it for environment variables (and if there were to be a nice
graphical interface for _setting_ the default environment variables, that
would be wonderful, but that's a totally different issue).
Linus
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