Thread: Writing a New Front-End

Originally Posted by 2k1Toaster

If you are going to be going heavy GL, then you will need a good system. What do you have?

nothing yet. I have a desktop with an Athlon 64x2 4400 and a geforce 7800 graphics card.

edit: I also have a pIII 500 with some pci graphics card that I will test it on as well.

Originally Posted by sean335

I have a desktop with an Athlon 64x2 4400 and a geforce 7800 graphics card.

There is no way in hell I can tell you that is a good CarPC system. You should do the coding to be as efficient as possible. Maybe a Core 2 Duo is what you will need, but you need low power consumption in a car environment. My entire computer system draws less than 25W, and usually is only 11-12W. Your 7800's fan draws more than that alone.

Code for something like a Pentium M at most. That way, you can use relatively efficient hardware.

PIII 500 might be too slow. More like 1Ghz pc's are the norm for carpc's. But if your program runs smooth on the 500Mhz with 256 or maybe 512 ram then you will be right were you need to be. Plus video cards add more to power consumption. Crappy OnBoard video like S3 chipset and such would also be prefered to run smooth on.

Dont take my word for it. It will be your software. Running on your pc. And if you have a car power supply that can output 400watts then go for it. As soon as the 400watt car power supply comes out im putting in the P4 3.2 Ghz with 128 nvidia card Gaming during lunch BABY!

You also might want to reconsider your use of MapPoint as the nav engine for your FE. Just browse through the Streetdeck forums for an idea of the problems that are cropping up with using MapPoint.

Originally Posted by sebberry

I wish I could build my own front-end... hell.. I can't even make a skin for RR.

RR Skins aren't too hard to make. Grab the RRSkinEditor and PhotoShop and then look at other skins to see how they did it.

www.3DBuzz.com has some good VTM's on PhotoShop if you register. They also have some good UT map VTM's available

Originally Posted by pRoFiT

PIII 500 might be too slow. More like 1Ghz pc's are the norm for carpc's. But if your program runs smooth on the 500Mhz with 256 or maybe 512 ram then you will be right were you need to be. Plus video cards add more to power consumption. Crappy OnBoard video like S3 chipset and such would also be prefered to run smooth on.

Dont take my word for it. It will be your software. Running on your pc. And if you have a car power supply that can output 400watts then go for it. As soon as the 400watt car power supply comes out im putting in the P4 3.2 Ghz with 128 nvidia card Gaming during lunch BABY!

Eventually I'll buy some sort of car pc. I figure i should write the software first though. I'll probably go with a low power pentium m and onboard graphics. The graphics rendering shouldn't be all that intensive. That's all a long way off though.

Originally Posted by Siezmik

You also might want to reconsider your use of MapPoint as the nav engine for your FE. Just browse through the Streetdeck forums for an idea of the problems that are cropping up with using MapPoint.

I'm going to just rip mappoint's data. It's going to be the hardest part (which i may fail at). If successful, I will store the data in my own database and do my own rendering and route calculation.

i presume you've already seen Sama's velocity front end?

his thinking, in some parts is similar to yours. OK, its java based, but the idea on that is that it will run on windows, linux and macs. Its not finished yet, its only in alpha or beta test stages, but worth looking at.

too many people on here seem to want to re-invent the wheel. I'm all for that if it has something to offer, but the likes of roadrunner havent been written over night, there are many features that have been considered from many many different users, so will, for most people include pretty much everything you want it to do. If there's anything in particular it doesnt do, then why not just code that part, rather than inventing the full front end from scratch, taking the same path, over coming the same problems, adding the same changes as has been done numerous times before.

i would like to know how this works out.

good luck with the project. Opengl sounds very interesting. Anyway I'll be watching and when/if you need a tester I'm local.