Developing for Maximum Compatibility

This section contains information relating to developing application software with maximum compatibility in mind, without sacrificing performance or features. Although this document defines how the specification should work, there are many different flavors of hardware out in the field. It is very important that you design your application with the following special cases in mind so that your application will run on the widest variety of hardware possible.

One of the common mistakes that many developers make when they first start developing graphics code, is to assume the graphics card they have in their system is a representative sample of what exists in the field. Although the driver interface will be identical on another graphics card, the capabilities and attributes that card reports may be very different. This section deals with explaining the most common pitfalls that plague developers first starting to develop graphics code.

Related Sub-Topics

Support Both 15-bit and 16-bits Per Pixel Modes

Support Both 24-bit and 32-bits per Pixel Modes

Do Not Assume Support for Double Scanned Modes

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