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Newcomers DBPro Corner / Grrrrrr

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BaronMunchausen
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Joined: 7th Jul 2003
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Posted: 8th Jul 2003 06:17
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For years I have been looking off and on for a programming language to implement certain gaming ideas that I have had kicking around in my head. I think DarkBasic (or DBpro) might be it, but I have some reservations. It seems like if a language is easy, it is slow to one degree or another, or if it has any speed, it either isn't very easy to use, or costs an arm and a leg. I have downloaded several DB programs (mostly from the retro contest) and a lot of them seem somewhat slow, not super slow, but just not as fast as many "commercial" games (running on a Sony Vaio P3-800, 300 meg of ram, Winders ME, Intel 810 graphics), half life runs plenty fast on my machine, even at 1024x768 resolution. I have ideas for a first person action/adventure game and an isometric tile type simulation game, but I have neither the desire nor the time to spend learning C or assembler. I am already 42, I figure by the time I would actually be able to produce something that was worth a hoot, it would probably take me 10 years.

I have looked into Python, Euphoria, Liberty Basic, and Ethos Basic. I might consider Pascal, but I gather that it is really not suited to game programming. Most of the games I have seen written in these languages are reminiscent of old 8-bit stuff, nothing 3d or if it is, it is abysmally slow or simplistic.

Ideally I would also like to be able to make programs under both windoze and Linux, but I realize that is probably a long shot. (though Python and Euphoria are both avalailable on these platforms...Euphoria appears to offer only minimal support of X.) A Linux version of DarkBasic would be waaaaay cool (I know that is pretty unlikely to happen....sigh), but I would be willing to content myself with windoze programming if I could be sure that the speed problem would not get in the way.

Enny thoughts?
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Falelorn
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Joined: 19th Jun 2003
Location: Canada
Posted: 8th Jul 2003 06:31
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What kinda games do you wanna do? Basically that should tell you what you should dev them in.
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BaronMunchausen
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Posted: 8th Jul 2003 16:16
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Well, as I stated in my original message, one idea I have is for what would amount to a first person shooter, though it would probably be more adventure oriented than "shooter" oriented (think of a cross between Myst and Half-Life, emphasis on Myst). I also have an idea for a simulation game that would probably be best served using a smooth scrolling isometric tile type screen setup (speed not so critical in this instance), but I don't want to spend a bunch of time messing with creating a way to display the smooth scrolling portion of the program.

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Beta1
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Posted: 8th Jul 2003 16:22
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for the first idea if its largely indoors then BSP sounds the way to go. Havnt tried that in DBP so cant coment, however the source code to the quake engine has been released now so maybe that would be the way to go.

For the second one if you did it in 3D with an isometric style view DBP would be a good choice.

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Dave J
Retired Moderator
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Joined: 11th Feb 2003
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Posted: 8th Jul 2003 18:18
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Yeah, don't expect a Linux version of DarkBASIC (Pro) anytime soon because it uses DirectX and as we all know, Microsoft likes things to stay Microsoft. Although I hear you can get a version up and running on Lindows but I can't confirm it.

"Computers are useless they can only give you answers."
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BaronMunchausen
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Posted: 8th Jul 2003 18:37
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what is BSP?

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Mentor
22
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Joined: 27th Aug 2002
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 8th Jul 2003 21:22 Edited at: 8th Jul 2003 21:24
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take a look at QuakeII/III, HalfLife or return to Castle Wolfenstien, all the scenery is BSP (binary space partition), it`s a way to create realistic 3d worlds without loading up the cpu with doomed to fail attempts to render a large level all at the same time, a BSP map only renders the parts of the map you can see from where you are stood, so it reduces the load on the computer and allows for more elaborate or massive levels, of course to work it has to have levels where you can`t see the whole thing at the same time, or you lose the speed advantage, thats why commercial games are indoors or in towns/countryside made of narrow valleys and tunnels, so that when the bsp map is compiled (when the computer steps through all the possible positions in the map and calculates what can be seen from each position and stores the data), it will find only a small amount of the total level is visible from each location, then all you have to worry about is how large the users memory is (cos all that data has to go somewhere), bsp also has some funky stuff built in like slide collision and volumetric fog (though volumetric fog isn`t supported in pro at the mo AFAIK), thats what bsp is, cheers.

Mentor.

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cypher
21
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Joined: 27th Nov 2002
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Posted: 8th Jul 2003 22:26
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@BaronMunchausen

BSP in DBP has some issues that not only have I experienced, but have read in the forums that others have had issues as well. I prefer to use a .X world and .X objects, assigning attributes for collision, score keeping, potion gathering, etc.

A great piece of code I suggest you take a look at is in the Code Snippets forum located at;

http://www.darkbasicpro.com/apollo/view.php?t=10315&b=6

I downloaded the code, built a world, modified the code to add a gun, bullets, jumping, sfx, and so on. I have a 2.2 p4, ATI Radeon 7500 video, and 1gig ram. I get between 230fps and 350fps depending on how much "stuff" I throw in there. The world I have created has 82,000 'ish poly's in it and that gives me 230+fps with no prob.

I do agree with you that some of the DBP games seem slow, but I believe it may be on purpose because DBP can give very fast fps depending on how you structure your code. However, I built a small race game 1 month after learning DBP and yep, it was slow because I did not understand the proper usage for "collision" and "sync" and made the game run way slow on most machines.

well, theres my 2 cents, I really like DBP and I feel it a great solution for most games a person wants to develop. Like most things, it will take some time (at least for me) to learn the in's and out's of DBP.

Hope this helps,
Cypher

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Mussi
21
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Joined: 27th Jan 2003
Location: Netherlands
Posted: 9th Jul 2003 01:03
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82000 poly's... are you sure and if you are then how should i structure my FPS engine?

Specs: AMD Athlon 1800, 256 DDRRam 266mhz, 10GB HD, Riva TNT2 Ultra 32mb
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cypher
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Posted: 9th Jul 2003 01:23
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82,000+ yep I'm sure. I build it in 3DS Max, and I check the file properties and that's the report. I'm at work right now so I can't tell you the exact #, but was in the 82,000+ range last time I looked.

Structure of code, I left the structure pretty much alone the way Kensupen coded it, yet as I added things to it I had to move different components of mine around to improve the FPS.

Once I get a bit more of my code done, I will post a download site.

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cypher
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Posted: 9th Jul 2003 04:04
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@Mussi

Well I lied to you. I just got home and checked my .MAX file and it's not 82,000+ it's exactly 8207. So, I must be dyslexic or something. sorry about the misleading info, I added a zero in my head.

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cypher
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Posted: 9th Jul 2003 04:05
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BTW, I made a world with 82,000 poly's just for fun and it dropped my frame rate to 29fps...big difference!

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Mussi
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Posted: 9th Jul 2003 13:46
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I inputted that .X walk code in my FPS 2 and I made a level of 50012 poly's and got a fps of 27 and the thing is... MY 3DCARD SUX!!!, i've ordered a Geforce 4 ti4400 128mb so i think i'll get a fps of at least 70

Specs: AMD Athlon 1800, 256 DDRRam 266mhz, 10GB HD, Riva TNT2 Ultra 32mb
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