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Newcomers DBPro Corner / Questions about dbpro from a potential customer.

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showson
22
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Posted: 30th Aug 2002 22:45
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Hi all!
I've been reading some C++ books for game development, then by doing a search online I found the info about DarkBasic and DarkBasic Pro.

--Please don't flame me on this next part, just my observations--

I downloaded some games and demos that people made with DB and although they were "cool" I made some observations. The gameplay on most was a little slow, the graphics didn't seem "smooth" and objects, like spheres and such, seemed to have jagged edges.
It kind of looked like the graphics engines of several years ago.
I'm not faulting the game devlopers or the creators of DarkBasic.. in fact I was impressed with many of the game concepts and execution of the games I tried.

Anyway, my question is - Is DBPro "better" than DB? By better I mean is it noticeably faster in 2D and 3D? Are the objects cleaner? Does the engine generate more modern looking visuals / effects?
I downloaded some of the demos for dbpro and the screenshots look great, but I haven't been able to run them on my work PC.

Any information would be helpful as I'm very interested in the product.

Thanks all!
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haggisman
22
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Posted: 30th Aug 2002 22:54
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DBpro is apparently much faster than the original DB especially 2D and the engine should undergo futher speed-ups in future patches, The objects such as the spheres should look at cleaner as well. Modern looking visuals are possible but the onus is more towards the actual art being good looking, What are you computer specs, maybe we can help you with the problems you have been having?

Specs:- 1GHZ athlon, Radeon8500, 192mb ram
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showson
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Posted: 30th Aug 2002 23:09
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Don't think the slowness was caused by my PC.. it was more of a "sluggishness" then slowness.

Home PC - AMD 1800XP (1.5 ghz), 512 MB RAM, XP, Geforce2

Work PC - Pentium III 500-600mhz, 192 MB RAM, 2k, Matrox Millenium G200

Haven't tried the DBpro demos at home yet, but at work I get the lovely "memory could not be read" error.. the address is 0x0000... all zeros

Thanks

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Martyn Pittuck
22
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Posted: 30th Aug 2002 23:29
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have you got Dx 8.1?

(Thats needed i think)

The Outside is a evil place to be, too much light, too much noise and too many distractions.
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MrTAToad
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Posted: 31st Aug 2002 02:13
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The 0x000 error is due to 24-bit graphics mode...

Change to either 16 or 32-bit graphics mode to get rid of it.

Yes, I really am THAT good...
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Dazzag
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Posted: 31st Aug 2002 04:02
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Damn it that's what it was... up till now all DBP demos didn't work on my laptop, and everybody said it was DirectX or drivers. Lowered it to 16bit (from 32) and works fine. Damn damn damn.....

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
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Dazzag
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Posted: 31st Aug 2002 04:03
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Could do with a better error message though...

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
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MrTAToad
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Posted: 31st Aug 2002 04:20
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Yes, I have mentioned that in the realgametools site...
Obviously no-one (of importance) read it...

Yes, I really am THAT good...
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Dazzag
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Posted: 31st Aug 2002 13:59
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Although some of the demos still don't work (bike demo being most obvious), with some directx error message (and I did upgrade to 8.1b). And anything that runs full screen is really slow.

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
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Richard Davey
Retired Moderator
22
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Posted: 31st Aug 2002 14:07
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"It kind of looked like the graphics engines of several years ago"

Erm.. DBV1 does have a graphics engine several years old

Cheers,

Rich

"Gentlemen, we are about to short-circuit the Universe!"
DB Team / Atari ST / DarkForge / Retro Gaming
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Steverino
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Posted: 2nd Sep 2002 23:53
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Keep in mind that most new commercial games are made by a team of professional programmers and artists with a budget similar to an independent feature film, and most DB games are made by one dedicated amateur with a budget of approximately $0.

Writing toy for surrealists -- http://www.iconpoet.com
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NTekk
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Posted: 5th Sep 2002 01:00
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Steverino...your breaking even...let me know your secrets!
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Martyn Pittuck
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Posted: 5th Sep 2002 16:37
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i think DBPro will have some feature games made in it.

Personal Opinion but hey, it can play Quake levels nativly can C?

DBPro is a games language, which has many pro's over C++ which is meant for Apps (The original C/C++ was). The only cons are that you cannot twaek the graphics engine as much as you could in C++ etc. But with 2 dedicated programmers working on nothing but getting the most of od DBPro, who needs a programming team with millions of $$$$$???

The Outside is a evil place to be, too much light, too much noise and too many distractions....
I went outside once and my FPS rate dropped to 5.
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haggisman
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Posted: 5th Sep 2002 18:46
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a programming team with millions of £££'s using DBpro would make some mighty fine games

Specs:- 1GHZ athlon, Radeon8500, 192mb ram
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Martyn Pittuck
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Posted: 5th Sep 2002 19:07
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But who would put $$$$£££££ into a DB prject?

Fast track may casue they have close ties, but the mainly publish. i cannot see infogrammes or codemaster every using DBPro until a really big game is made.

The Outside is a evil place to be, too much light, too much noise and too many distractions....
I went outside once and my FPS rate dropped to 5.
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MrTAToad
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Posted: 6th Sep 2002 14:32
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True - games companies usually have their own tools, plus they do most of the writing in C/C++, making DBpro (for them) irrelivant.

Yes, I really am THAT good...
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AlecM
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Location: Concord, MA
Posted: 12th Sep 2002 23:09
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isnt infograms just a publisher? well i sorta hate them for buying up the rights to all the old atari games, now nobody can make clones with the same names as the originals.

Goto http://www.shellshockede.com
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flanque
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Posted: 14th Sep 2002 17:27
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Well you can still make and release them, you just may be smarter to leave your name off them.

:: Specs: AMD Athlon XP 1600+ (1.4GHz), 256MB PC133 SDRAM, Leadtek Geforce 2MX SH 64MB, SB-Live!, LG Studioworks 775N 17", MS Natural Pro KB, MS Optical Mouse, Windows 2000 Pro (SP3) ::
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JustLuke
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Posted: 14th Sep 2002 18:07
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Oi! Enough with the Infogrames criticising, already!

Sorry... I hate to see the company I love (and, um, work for) portrayed in a bad light.

FYI: We're a developer/publisher, and we develop as many games internally as we publish from other development houses.

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Martyn Pittuck
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Posted: 14th Sep 2002 18:11
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hehe, i love being right

The Outside is a evil place to be, too much light, too much noise and too many distractions....
I went outside once and my FPS rate dropped to 5.
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Rob K
Retired Moderator
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Location: Surrey, United Kingdom
Posted: 16th Sep 2002 16:51
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DBPro is much faster & looks much better. Check the ship & water matrix demos, they could certainly not have been made with an old 3D engine.

what is a signature?
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