Frontend

This page contains answers to the frequently asked questions we face. If your question is not in the list, please visit the IRC-channel #frontend on EFnet.

• How does Frontend compare performance-wise to OpenGL and Direct3D?
  Frontend is usually implemented as an abstraction/wrapper layer on top of OpenGL or Direct3D, so you will always get some API-call overhead compared to calling the underlaying functions directly. Except from this, using Frontend is just as fast as anything when used correctly. In FWG we strive to make our implementations as optimized as possible to minimize the overhead in the most performance-critical areas. In practice, most programmers tend to wrap up their calls to the native graphics API anyway to make the interface more pleasant to work with and suit their programming style, so unless you are really hardcore, you would usually end up taking the same overhead cost anyway.
• What does the md/mdd/mt/mtd tags in the file names of the Frontend libraries for Windows mean?
  They indicate which version of the C++ runtime the library was compiled with. Make sure you link against the one which matches your project settings. In Visual C++ 2005, in the Project Properties > C++ > Code Generation section, the “Runtime Library” option displays which version you should use. Look at the abbreviation in the parenthesis, for instance “Multi-threaded Debug DLL (/MDd)” means you should use the “mdd” version of the libraries.