posted 18 years ago
It depends. If you are wanting to draw just a 'normal' picture (like a JPEG or something), then drawing at negative coordinates might be enough (e.g. drawing at (-100, -100) will show you a section of the picture from (100, 100) to (500, 500). But be aware that on some PCs this kind of drawing (where the image is bigger than the screen) can be VERY slow. Not on all, just certain graphics setups.
If, however, you want background for a 2D game (something like Xevious or many platform games) you will need to look into using a tilemap.