Panda3D Recipes

Making Panda3D startup snappy

Use Panda3D 1.7.0, there was some CPU measurement code prior to that that slowed Panda startup a lot
On Windows, on any API, (If your build has DX support, even if you are using OpenGL) use the following config setting: request-dxdisplay-information #f
On DirectX9, use the following setting: dx-count-all-cards-memory #f

With these three things you'll be looking at a startup time of 0.1 seconds (depends on your computer, of course) on Windows with Directx, and 0.5 with OpenGL in Windows Vista/7 and 0.1 with Windows XP. OpenGL always initializes slower in Windows Vista/7 and there's nothing you can do, it's like this for all games and engines (I've only tested with nvidia cards.)

My Panda3D TODO

GUI

Overflowing text entries (1.7.0)
Entry text selection
Vertically scrollable entries with text selection
Support overflow in rotated entries
Re-use of freetype faces among font instances to save ram and load time but allow use of different PPUs
Lazy font loading for big fonts

Input system

No input keyboard when mouse outside of window bug
Support for handling of arbitrary keycodes
Bug where a key modifier is dismissed if it's pressed when Panda starts

Build system

Add --override command to Makepanda to override configuration values.
Ability to turn off checked iterators.
try nedmalloc with panda.

General bugs

Optimize startup speed (Use 1.7.0 for a 2 seconds faster startup)
Windows 7 nvidia fullscreen bug (Fixed for 1.7.0)

Graphic Output

On-the-fly fullscreen switching in Windows

DirectX

Remove shader 8-texture limitation (Fixed by David for 1.7.0)
Multisampling support (Finished for 1.7.0)
Depth texture support (I abandoned this as shadow mapping works fine with colormaps)

Legend:

Undone

Done

Partially done