Correlation between OpenGL and KOS PVR?

[epicasian]

My question is, would it be beneficial to learn OpenGL and firmly grasp the concepts before using the Dreamcast's PVR? I'm coming from SDL and would love to use PVR but I have no idea how to begin to use it correctly or efficiently.

Thanks in advance,
~Asian

[BB Hood]

No, learn the Parallax library it is much easier to understand when you go through its source. Of course the PVR examples provided with KOS are also very good to learn from. There are also threads on this forums that are of some use also but you will have to find those(such as the palette thread by BlackAura). You could also look for open source projects that use the Dreamcast's PVR directly (DCMappy[doesn't deal with 3d stuff]). I converted some NeHe OpenGL Lessons into Parallax Lessons. It helps you learn how to do 3d stuff and if you understand how parallax works by looking at its source you should be able to do the same thing by using the PVR directly (always good to use a 3d library though). DCMappy and Parallax lessons can be found on this page: http://sourceforge.net/users/bbhoodsta under "My Projects".

[epicasian]

I forgot to mention I'm doing 2D, nowhere near 3D yet.

[BB Hood]

http://dcemulation.org/?title=PowerVR_Introduction You can check out BlueCrab and BlackAura's tutorial on the PVR here: http://dcemulation.org/?title=PowerVR_Introduction

[epicasian]

What would be the advantage of using Parallax over Direct PVR?

[BB Hood]

Parallax is just a wrapper around direct pvr functions. You can do without it but it is easier to use it if you're doing 3D stuff. Since you're not you can use direct pvr just fine. I also forgot to mention that the png example included with kos is also useful to teach you how to display images. Pay attention to the back_init(), draw_back(), and draw_frame() functions in that example.