VBlank synchronisation/High frame rates?

[bluescrn]

I'm working on a scrolling system (which will hopefully become a game), and my target frame rate is 60fps (at least on a 206Mhz iPaq, rendering a 240x240 area).

Early tests make that look very possible. (So why do most games, even simple ones, run at 30 or less?)

My screen scrolls very smoothly, but some quite nasty vertical tearing is occuring

Is there any way to sync the screen flips with the vertical blank? Surely there is a vertical blank (there is on the GBA...) - Is there any way to wait for it?

(even nasty, hardware-specific hacks would be useful?)

Dave

[Johan]

Sorry, there's no way to do it. Not even by hacking.

[Guest]

That's a bit disappointing to hear

Anyway, I'm hoping that with proper graphics, the tearing won't look too obvious... it's very noticable with one repeating 16x16 tile...

[efortier]

Hi bluescrn,

I would be curious to know what kind of screen activity you have in order to get 60 FPS.

Do you blit your 240x240 screen in smaller part?

I have a 240x320 render area, to which I blit tiles of 32x32, and the best FPS I get is 45, and that is using tricks like several rendering threads, etc.

When I start my sound mixer, the FPS drop by about 4-5.

Thanks...