Considering the RAM limitations of the Dreamcast, would an open-source PDF reader even be possible?
Wiki article on PDF software: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PDF_software
Maybe a proggy that only opens one page at a time with caching?
PDF reader
-
Stryfe
- Psychotic DCEmu
- Posts: 577
- https://www.artistsworkshop.eu/meble-kuchenne-na-wymiar-warszawa-gdzie-zamowic/
- Joined: Mon Aug 11, 2008 9:34 am
- Location: Nowhere U.S.A.
- Has thanked: 0
- Been thanked: 0
-
Ex-Cyber
- DCEmu User with No Life
- Posts: 3641
- Joined: Sat Feb 16, 2002 1:55 pm
- Has thanked: 0
- Been thanked: 0
Re: PDF reader
I don't think it's out of the question. According to Windows Task Manager, Foxit Reader takes up about 14MB when viewing a typical document (properly generated rather than scanned, black and white, letter size) on my system. There might be corresponding OS/driver RAM usage that's not being counted, but I'm sure it's possible to shrink it further.
"You know, I have a great, wonderful, really original method of teaching antitrust law, and it kept 80 percent of the students awake. They learned things. It was fabulous." -- Justice Stephen Breyer
-
BlackAura
- DC Developer
- Posts: 9951
- Joined: Sun Dec 30, 2001 9:02 am
- Has thanked: 0
- Been thanked: 1 time
Re: PDF reader
At a rough guess, an A4 page rendered to fit full screen (around 640x900, 16-bit) would be just over 1MB. I wouldn't have a clue about US paper sizes, but I'd guess they'd be comparable. You wouldn't be able to zoom that in any way, of course. You'd have to increase the rendering size a lot, but there's enough RAM to do that.
Whether there's enough RAM to actually fit a complete PDF rendering library, and all of it's working data (PDF files aren't exactly easy to parse)... I don't know.
Whether there's enough RAM to actually fit a complete PDF rendering library, and all of it's working data (PDF files aren't exactly easy to parse)... I don't know.
-
BlueCrab
- The Crabby Overlord
- Posts: 5663
- Joined: Mon May 27, 2002 11:31 am
- Location: Sailing the Skies of Arcadia
- Has thanked: 9 times
- Been thanked: 69 times
- Contact:
Re: PDF reader
Something worthy to note, there's a PDF reader that does a decent job that's available for the Nintendo DS, which is a lot more limited than the Dreamcast in the memory department:
http://ands-pdf.blogspot.com/2009/03/an ... se-14.html
It'd probably be possible to take a look at it and try to port it (its open-source, apparently). I'm not volunteering to do it due to lack of time, but it shouldn't be THAT hard.
http://ands-pdf.blogspot.com/2009/03/an ... se-14.html
It'd probably be possible to take a look at it and try to port it (its open-source, apparently). I'm not volunteering to do it due to lack of time, but it shouldn't be THAT hard.
-
Stryfe
- Psychotic DCEmu
- Posts: 577
- Joined: Mon Aug 11, 2008 9:34 am
- Location: Nowhere U.S.A.
- Has thanked: 0
- Been thanked: 0
Re: PDF reader
I take it nobody has any interest in doing something like this then?BlueCrab wrote:Something worthy to note, there's a PDF reader that does a decent job that's available for the Nintendo DS, which is a lot more limited than the Dreamcast in the memory department:
http://ands-pdf.blogspot.com/2009/03/an ... se-14.html
It'd probably be possible to take a look at it and try to port it (its open-source, apparently). I'm not volunteering to do it due to lack of time, but it shouldn't be THAT hard.
Without a couple years of higher education regarding coding, I wouldn't be able to do stuff like this myself.
