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From: amanda@intercon.uu.net (Amanda Walker)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac,comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Quickdraw efficiency question
Message-ID: <1304@intercon.UUCP>
Date: 24 Jul 89 22:37:03 GMT
References: <1681@neoucom.UUCP> <2803@internal.Apple.COM>
Sender: news@intercon.UUCP
Reply-To: amanda@intercon.uu.net (Amanda Walker)
Organization: InterCon Systems Corporation
Lines: 23

In article <2803@internal.Apple.COM>, maxie@apple.com (Keith G. Nemitz) writes:
> Another method for drawing characters to the screen (and quite legal) is 
> to predraw the
> the characterset into an offscreen buffer and use copybits to blast their 
> images to screen.

I tried this once.  I timed it, and on anything below a II, DrawText (or
actually, StdText...) was *faster* than CopyBitsing each character.  The
only way I got any faster was to stuff things into screenBits, which is
a major no-no.  Even so, on a full screen of text on a Plus, I was a whole
half a clock tick faster.  I decided it wasn't worth it...

For terminal emulators, anyway, you get much bigger wins by working on
the emulator and serial port  buffering code.  I suspect that one reason
that people like to claim that using the ROM to draw character is "too slow"
is so that they can claim that their program's lack of performance is
someone else's fault...

--
Amanda Walker
InterCon Systems Corporation
--
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