Alternative to PTK ?

[datxcod]

Hello

I'm wondering if you guys know of any good alternatives to PTK ?

I'm using Java+LWJGL for my project but I realized there are a lot of people (especially windows users) who don't have good OGL drivers, I tried running a OGL app on a brand new windows machine and it crashed :/ .

So I'm looking for a lib/engine with directx drivers for windows (as a fallback maybe) and OGL for MAC/UNIX.

I was looking at allegro and from the description it says it supports DX for windows users but Quartz for macOs . I haven't worked with Quartz before so I don't know how reliable it is, does anyone have any experience with allegro for both mac and windows?

The only other alternative would be to use SDL but I think it's too low level, I don't have any problem coding the stuff but I rather keep working on the project than spend like a month building a decent engine.

[MacMan45]

I'm not familiar with allegro, but just so you know, Quartz is just the OSX display subsystem, so I think its safe to consider it stable =D

Which also backs onto OpenGL with supported graphics drivers (its what OSX uses to produce all it's eye candy)

[Sybixsus]

BlitzMax? That has OpenGL on Windows, Mac and Linux and DirectX on Windows.

[datxcod]

MacMan, Oh then it should be reliable enough for games, I suppose :) , but I still wonder why I don't see many people using it ?


Sybixus, BlitzMax is nice, it comes with examples and there are tons of people working with it but it uses its own proprietary language, and trying to debug on it is kind of sucky.

Keep them coming guys

[svero]

Doesnt PTK also support dx7 now?

- S

[MFS]

Yeah, PTK has both DX and OGL rendering modes. I assumed the OP had other reasons to seek an alternative, but perhaps not?

[Emmanuel]

ptk does render to D3D7 (all the games in my signature use it). If you seek an alternative that works on mac, there's the playground framework (http://developer.playfirst.com/) that also does '2d in 3d' using D3D on windows and OpenGL on mac, with lua and flash support, free even if you don't publish with playfirst, but with a much geekier interface than ptk and I don't think you can test your game using OpenGL on windows before subjecting yourself to xcode on mac (that's what I use the windows gl renderer in ptk for).

Best regards,
Emmanuel

[Sillysoft]

Depending on your needs, Java2D might work for you. It's what I use.

[princec]

If your game crashed on a brand new Windows installation, it's less to do with broken drivers and a lot to do with your broken code. Don't expect PTK to magically fix the problem!

Cas :)

[Red Marble Games]

IMHO, don't use Allegro. While it is technically cross-platform, its Mac code is waaaay out of date. It says it uses Quartz, but (a) it doesn't, actually, it uses Quickdraw, which is the pre-Mac-OSX rendering API which is now deprecated, and (b) even if it really used Quartz you wouldn't want that, because Quartz is generally too slow on the bulk of the installed base. That may be changing with newer hardware, but for now the Mac API of choice remains OpenGL for all things game-related.

Mark

[Jack Norton]

If your game crashed on a brand new Windows installation, it's less to do with broken drivers and a lot to do with your broken code. Don't expect PTK to magically fix the problem!

Cas :)

Yes exactly. I had recently updated my nvidia drivers, and I was screaming at PTK because the OpenGL version of my games was unplayable. Then I checked other openGL games and discovered that they ALL don't work now :eek:
Had to revert to a previous nvidia driver to fix the problem...

[datxcod]

Emmanuel, I'm checking out Playground's SDK, it seems what I'm looking for (feature wise at least).


Princec, I have 3 computers at home ,all of them use 3d acceleration with previously installed drivers, I use all of them for games and work, the app works fine on those 3 computers, now my brother bought a new computer (intel , those crappy ones sold in combo), it has integrated acceleration (which I believe is what a lot of casual gamers have) so I thought about trying the app on it and it just crashes while loading. It doesn't run a lot of OGL based games like "gish","tribal trouble" etc. But it works wonderfully with dx based apps (provided that the game is not using shaders or heavy physics though). I could reinstall the video drivers but the point is that out of the box not all computers have decent ogl drivers. Maybe I'm being too picky about this whole thing and should just release it using ogl.

Red Marble Games, thanks for the info, that was my original concern, not using OGL on mac.

[datxcod]

Yes exactly. I had recently updated my nvidia drivers, and I was screaming at PTK because the OpenGL version of my games was unplayable. Then I checked other openGL games and discovered that they ALL don't work now :eek:
Had to revert to a previous nvidia driver to fix the problem...

That's what I'm talking about, your games can stop running due to bad ogl drivers, ideally there should be a fallback renderer (unless we are talking about MACs).

[oNyx]

The capabilities of those Intel integrated chipsets are very limited and their drivers are really bad.

Most likely you just push too often.

[Jack Norton]

That's what I'm talking about, your games can stop running due to bad ogl drivers, ideally there should be a fallback renderer (unless we are talking about MACs).

I start them by default on DX on pc and let user choose if to use GL. Easy :)

[datxcod]

I start them by default on DX on pc and let user choose if to use GL. Easy :)

Yes that's what I want to do, but I know you use PTK and I was looking for a free alternative , I might just end up buying PTK but right now I'm checking the Playground SDK.

[Pyabo]

The big tradeoff in PlayGround vs. PTK is closed source / open source.

[soniCron]

I think it's important to clarify exactly what Pyabo meant: Playground SDK provides compiled libraries whereas PTK gives you the source code upon purchase.

Neither, however, are publicly open sourced software.

[princec]

I start them by default on DX on pc and let user choose if to use GL. Easy :)

Er, GL almost never fails for me. It either works, or it doesn't, generally. I assume because the OP is using PTK it's 2D work, in which case there is almost bugger all to go wrong. So again I say, stop this n00bish API hopping and just fix the bloody code in the first place. If it decides it can't run, handle it gracefully.

Does Titan Attacks (http://www.puppygames.net/downloads/SetupTitanAttacks.exe) crash on said computer?

Cas :)

[datxcod]

Princec,

In my case I'm not saying it doesn't work in my computers but that DX tends to be a better option for old windows machines (or new ones with integrated video chips/crappy video cards). I can download new drivers from the manufacturer's for the computer I was using but IMHO most casual gamers don't bother with downloading and reinstalling drivers, that's just a thought.

Titan attack works perfect in my machines but I'm usually updating drivers, in my original post I'm talking about low end computers and ogl.

Again this is all my opinion.

[spellcaster]

I think his point is that a crash is most of the time due to bad coding practises (as in: not checking return codes, assuming a certain behavior instead of checking for it, etc.). If the game is coded nicely it might "not work" on a low-tech computer but it shouldn't crash.

[datxcod]

I think his point is that a crash is most of the time due to bad coding practises (as in: not checking return codes, assuming a certain behavior instead of checking for it, etc.). If the game is coded nicely it might "not work" on a low-tech computer but it shouldn't crash.

Ok I understand. Well to me, a game that crashes or "does not work" is the same thing, it leads to the user being unable to play the game. It doesn't matter if you're handling it well or not (that's not my point here). The app didn't work in that machine using integrated video chip, so that's why I started this thread , because I wanted a DX renderer for windows based machines and OGL for the rest. Thank you all for replying.

[ChrisP]

Crashes are tough to diagnose, especially when they happen on customers' computers. Much better to display "Sorry, your graphics card doesn't support Hyperpixelbufferwhatsit Shader version 15.3" or "Failed to open importantfile.dat" or whatever - then you know what's causing the problem.

If your game crashes whenever it encounters an unexpected condition, tech support will become a nightmare and your customers will be frustrated. Crashing is bad.

[princec]

Yup. With a crash your user is left stranded; with a graceful exit you have an opportunity to redeem the situation and direct them to downloading some new drivers. This has led to me collecting statistics which suggest that 35% of Windows users don't have drivers and the other 65% do just fine. That may sounds a lot but well over 50% of my sales are to Mac users so losing a third of the Windows segment is not really a big deal to me as I have saved a lot of time using Java to develop my games in.

Besides... isn't the point of you using LWJGL+Java that you can write games easily for Mac and Windows (and even Linux) without all that faffing about in C++ with headers and libraries and obscure syntax?

And having said that.. Pat did ask once upon a time if anyone would be interested in writing a Java binding for PTK. I didn't have the time but if anyone would care to take the reins that'd be grand :)

Cas :)

[datxcod]

That's good to know princec, so you are losing a chunk of sales due to bad drivers, maybe you could port your games to java2d (which uses DX iirc, not sure) and strip down some of the effects of the game. Or start building that Java binding for ptk (or dx) , you can look at it as an investment for future games, on top of that a lot of people would benefit from such bindings :D .

[spellcaster]

Well, since the topic has drifted slightly already - does anybody know if I can render to a texture in PTK? I'd like to render the player name onto a grid and do some stuff with it (think waving flag effect, etc.).

I had a look at the documentation, but couldn't find anything regarding this topic.

[Emmanuel]

You can't render to a texture in ptk, as render targets aren't supported. (they could be, at the expense of compatibility). Playground supports it I think. If you don't need to re-blit with an alpha channel, you can render, grab the backbuffer to a texture, and blit that.

Best regards,
Emmanuel