From what I remember when I was thinking about doing graphics programming in Java, the built in libraries are slow. I was advised on GameDev.Net that anyone doing anything serious would have to use something like jogl
I think I found a solution by researching and putting bits and pieces together from too many Google searches.
Here it is, comments and all:
private BufferedImage toCompatibleImage(BufferedImage image)
{
// obtain the current system graphical settings
GraphicsConfiguration gfx_config = GraphicsEnvironment.
getLocalGraphicsEnvironment().getDefaultScreenDevice().
getDefaultConfiguration();
/*
* if image is already compatible and optimized for current system
* settings, simply return it
*/
if (image.getColorModel().equals(gfx_config.getColorModel()))
return image;
// image is not optimized, so create a new image that is
BufferedImage new_image = gfx_config.createCompatibleImage(
image.getWidth(), image.getHeight(), image.getTransparency());
// get the graphics context of the new image to draw the old image on
Graphics2D g2d = (Graphics2D) new_image.getGraphics();
// actually draw the image and dispose of context no longer needed
g2d.drawImage(image, 0, 0, null);
g2d.dispose();
// return the new optimized image
return new_image;
}
In my previous post, GraphicsConfiguration was what held the information needed to create optimized images on a system. It seems to work pretty well, but I would have thought Java would automatically do this for you. Obviously you can't get too comfortable with Java. :) I guess I ended up answering my own question. Oh well, hopefully it'll help some of you I've seen trying to make use of Java for 2D games.