[quake2] console font size - anybody?

[Thomas J Fogal]

 <10766.1105551121 at www54.gmx.net>"Manfred Vogelgesang" writes:
> >  <200501121621.32294.prefect_ at gmx.net>Nicolai Haehnle writes:

<snip>

> > > With OpenGL, scaling the bitmaps should be trivial. It'll look ugly for
> > odd
> > > scale factors, but the console font isn't exactly beautiful anyway.
> > 
> > nod, keep in mind that scaling is slow though.
> > 
> > I took a quick look but did not try hacking any code. This might be
> > doable by wrapping all 'DrawChar' and/or 're.DrawChar' calls in:
> > 
> > glPushMatrix();
> > 	glScalef(1.0,1.0,-x);
> > 	re.DrawChar(...);
> > glPopMatrix();
> > 
> > in client/console.c. Or perhaps the mod might be appropriate in
> > M_DrawCharacter from client/menu.c.
> > 
> > Lighting in particular is one thing that causes a major slowdown with
> > scaling. It would probably be a good idea to disable and reenable
> > lighting within that push/pop, above.

<snip>

> I hope, nobody misunderstood my question:
> I just mean scaling the text of the console messages, not necessarily the
> hud, like the weapons, ammo display etc.

nod. I hoped (maybe guessed is a better word) that DrawChar was only
used for console text messages, but it may be used for the in-game hud
too. I'm guessing/banking on the in-game hud being a series of images,
though.

> You think, this slows things down?
> 
> Well, with gl_scale set from 1 (default) to 2 in "nocheat" I don't notice
> ANY such slowdown. Actually, I can use very high resolutions and still have
> an easily readable console (all those messages by other players); of course,
> there should be no scaling whatsoever of the game itself!

yes and no. technically, most cards will have a harder time rendering
scaled geometries, because of the way most rendering pipelines are
structured. That being said, its also probable you won't notice either
way. Quake2 is relatively 'light' in terms of graphics, so a modern
card can easily afford to run through its pipeline more than twice
within a single monitor refresh.

> You are right in so far as some scaling factors cause ugly fonts:
> factors like 1.5 or 1.7 or 1.92 etc.
> 
> But the integers 1, 2, 3... work fine - and again, no (noticeable) slowdown
> at all.

I've no firsthand evidence of this but it makes sense. Q2 fonts are
bitmapped, IIRC, and thus if you scale them to obscene proportions they
will look blocky/aliased.

> Perhaps someone still has an idea or (god forbid, haha) even writes a quick
> patch - if he has time and interest and IF there is really nothing in the
> current code to resize the console/players text messages.

I'll try and see what my push/pop idea results in.

-tom