After Blitz... - Socoder

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Socoder -> On Topic -> After Blitz...
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Thu, 26 Nov 2009, 03:50
Jayenkai	I've been using my lovely 2D-in-3D functions for a while now, but I feel like I'm getting too settled into my routine. Feels like I oughta shake things up a bit. I bought BlitzMax a couple of years (maybe!) ago, and that was alright, but it had a horrible buffer-tweaking issue, whereby one system might be able to keep up 500 frames a sec of random buffer changes, but another would struggle to manage 2! Booo! Who wants those kinds of issues when you're trying to write AGameAWeek? So, I'm trying to find something nice and simple. Something where I can sit down, write a game, have it WORK, and not have to worry about everything else. Plus points for the following.. .. Doesn't require users to install 7 gigs of garbage before they can play my 2Mb game. .. Playable by Mac/Linux users. .. Screen scaling!? .. Just Works.. Any suggestions? Or am I just going to stick with Blitz? -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Thu, 26 Nov 2009, 04:13
JL235	I'd recommend asking yourself how important Linux and Mac support really is. What percentage of users who visit AGameAWeek actually run either of those OSs? Unless you are running both those OSs then you can also never really support and test them. Bad support looks worse then no support. It might just lead to more work then you need. You want it to be stand-alone, so it would need to be natively compiled (interpreters are too big). So an obvious alternative would be C++, but I'd recommend a language with an in-built garbage collector. D is meant to be good, but I've also heard it's community is a bit of a mess (two standard libraries and no real editor). My personal recommendations would be two languages I've looked at for years but never got around to properly using: Ocaml and Eiffel. I believe both provide compilers, although I think you have to pay for Eiffels if you ever want to use it commercially. Both have OpenGL bindings so you can build your own hardware accelerated 2d engine on top (which isn't that much work to do).
Thu, 26 Nov 2009, 04:36
Jayenkai	I tried C++ a long while ago, but it was a complete pain in the ass trying to get audio to work properly.. I mean, seriously, how hard "should" that be, vs how blinkin' hard it actually turned out to be! -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Thu, 26 Nov 2009, 04:41
Afr0	I'd recommend SFML Seems to support audio rather well... Edit: Doesn't support *.mod, but 'Can load and save standard sound formats : ogg, wav, flac, aiff, au, raw, paf, svx, nist, voc, ircam, w64, mat4, mat5 pvf, htk, sds, avr, sd2, caf, wve, mpc2k, rf64' -=-=- Afr0 Games Project Dollhouse on Github - Please fork!
Thu, 26 Nov 2009, 04:57
Jayenkai	Indeed, looks fairly decent, thanks Afr0.
Thu, 26 Nov 2009, 05:04
Jayenkai	"For example, if you use the Audio and Graphics modules, you'll need to distribute the System, Window, Graphics, and Audio DLLs." eeuw, messy.. Plus, it doesn't say anywhere, but I'm guessing that the reliance on DLL's means it's not going to be too happy with Mac+Linux. CaffeineKid suggested retrying BlitzMax, so I might go and try that. Flash is seeming ever popular, again.. I really oughta try learning that sometime. -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Thu, 26 Nov 2009, 05:20
Afr0	There's also FreeBASIC -=-=- Afr0 Games Project Dollhouse on Github - Please fork!
Thu, 26 Nov 2009, 05:35
Jayenkai	Downloading GLBasic's demo. It can apparently do a lot of stuff, so.. might as well give it a whirl. -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Thu, 26 Nov 2009, 05:45
Jayenkai	sigh Maybe I'll try that later. The celeron damn near had a heart attack when the GLBasic installer got up to installing the Visual-c runtime stuff. "WARNING : Processor Overheating : Close all programs!" -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Thu, 26 Nov 2009, 06:18
JL235	Can't you just use the SDL Audio with C++? I'd have presumed that would work ok.
Thu, 26 Nov 2009, 06:49
Hotshot	CaffeineKid suggested retrying BlitzMax, so I might go and try that. I agree with Caffeinekid and give a good go
Thu, 26 Nov 2009, 07:58
Jayenkai	Huh.. Here's an interesting development. hAxe now does C++ compiling, meaning you can more or less write a game, have it compile to Flash, Java, or C++.. Apparently it'll even do iPhone, too. blimey. Not sure how all that work, but I'm having a nosey. Got sod all coding done today, mind. -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Thu, 26 Nov 2009, 08:21
JL235	Jayenkai hAxe now does C++ compiling, meaning you can more or less write a game, have it compile to Flash, Java, or C++.. Apparently it'll even do iPhone, too. But can you? It says on their site that haXe offers platform specific libraries, and much of their API is split into Flash, cpp, neko, flash, etc. I don't see any graphics support in the cross-platform library section. \|edit\| I've not used haXe, but to me it looks like only their language and the core API is cross-platform. \|edit\|
Thu, 26 Nov 2009, 08:21
steve_ancell	Jayenkai sigh Maybe I'll try that later. The celeron damn near had a heart attack when the GLBasic installer got up to installing the Visual-c runtime stuff. "WARNING : Processor Overheating : Close all programs!" So if a mushroom cloud suddenly appears in your hometown, we will know what happened
Thu, 26 Nov 2009, 09:06
Jayenkai	Haven't a clue, and after having spent a couple of hours trying to make myself a nice flash test proggy, I still haven't a clue! -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Thu, 26 Nov 2009, 09:20
Phoenix	If you're afraid of .DLLs, you can statically link to SFML and get one fat executable instead. Regarding cross-platform-ness, SFML can run on Macintosh/Linux. \|edit\| Although, C++ brings its own set of nuisances. \|edit\|
Thu, 26 Nov 2009, 09:53
JL235	Unless you know the libraries will be available on the users PC (i.e. win32 and DirectX for screen, controls, graphics and sound) then you will always have to distribute something with your app. A few .dlls don't sound so bad to me, they should only take up at most a MB or two.
Thu, 26 Nov 2009, 10:41
Evil Roy Ferguso	BlitzMax is pretty stable now -- I think the first couple of releases were more or less betas. Since 1.3x-ish, it's gotten quite a bit more stable / consistent across computer machines. You might want to give it another try. D is in many ways a clean and beautiful language. CodeBlocks has rudimentary support for D now, and Eclipse has D plugins. Getting it all set up is a pain, but if you're like me, you'll find it all very nice and then somewhat sadly go back to C++ because nobody uses D -- which is ironic, because I think that's what happened to every would-be D user ever, stunting the growth of the language. Compiler support is kind of iffy on non-Windows, IIRC, but I haven't bothered to research that again for a while. The closest to it that you'll find in widespread use is C#, which is also a very nice language. I'll put out that the CLR is pretty common now, and that there are alternatives to XNA, such as SDL.net, which also works under Linux and Mac, but I'll also acknowledge that it probably violates your 7GB of crap rule. C++ is a bit of a nuisance, but it's certainly manageable, and with SFML graphics are not so bad. Also, templates are love.* SDL is also a viable option in C++, but I don't like mixing C and C++ if I can avoid it -- C++ really is a different language; it just happens to be mostly backwards compatible. * Also hate. So yeah, it's something like this: If BlitzMax.IsStableNow() Return BlitzMax ElseIf JNK.IsComfortableWithout(D.Community) Return D ElseIf Not CSharp.IsStupidlyHuge() Return CSharp Else Return CPlusPlus EndIf --v
Thu, 26 Nov 2009, 14:58
mindstorm8191	Flash is definately a good idea for cross compatibility, but I don't know how easy it would be to code. Besides, I think it costs money to buy the compiler... I was thinking of making a generic javascript-driven games engine, however difficult that may be. But once a workable library is built, it would be a free development platform and fully cross-compatible - and could even work on the iPhone. -=-=- Vesuvius web game
Thu, 26 Nov 2009, 15:07
deleted user	I had a little play with purebasic, and it was quite easy coming from Blitz, although I with the demo whether it is as good as it says It also aims to be very cross compatible, I use Linux and the limited linux demo worked well and what I wrote in the linux version also compiled on the Windows version, it runs through what libraries it detects such as directx for windows or sdl. -=-=- delete my account
Thu, 26 Nov 2009, 16:07
Jayenkai	OK, got BlitzMax reinstalled (fook, have I not actually installed it since I got the Vista system!?!!? How long ago WAS H~S? September 2008!? Blimey!) Had a lovely game, then switched to DirectX mode. DirectX mode causes the horrible horrible HORRIBLE slowdown when playing about with the buffers. OpenGL is apparently unbothered by my feckin' around with giant images. It's kinda odd, to be honest, because it's a DirectX7 driver, and yet Blitz2D/3D is also a DirectX7 driver.. And that's perfectly happy with me drawing to buffers. hmm.. I might yet give BMax another chance. Probably best if I didn't insist on playing around with the buffers all the time!! -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Fri, 27 Nov 2009, 05:24
Hotshot	there is BLITZMAX Update 1.35
Fri, 27 Nov 2009, 05:38
Jayenkai	Indeed, that was the one I installed freshly last night! I even tried switching it to DirectX9 mode, but that didn't help. Silly thing. OpenGL seems fine, though. -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Fri, 27 Nov 2009, 11:14
JL235	What would your ideal language be? For example what parts of existing languages would you like to combine to make the perfect language?
Sat, 28 Nov 2009, 09:01
TazzMan47	You might want to give DarkBasic Pro a shot now that it's FREE. -=-=- Are You Rapture Ready?
Sat, 28 Nov 2009, 10:57
Afr0	Ugh. All Blitz users hate DarkBasic. I don't even use Blitz anymore and I hate it. -=-=- Afr0 Games Project Dollhouse on Github - Please fork!
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