Search on all of James C. Smith's threads. The developer of BreakQuest also posts on here, so he can also confirm/deny how he's rendering.
Neat! Since it free, I'd love to put it on ChessCommander.com - but it doesn't support 'remove' for taking back a move. Any chance you could implement this feature? Would you consider joining my affiliate program? Seems like a perfect partnership - I could do an installer with Natwarlal set as the default engine. I'd set your commision to 40%
Sure I can. And since our discussion is getting OT for this thread, I will PM you regarding this from now on.
BreakQuest is software-rendered, see here for more info: http://www.nurium.com/phpBB01/viewtopic.php?t=49 But I'm also looking for a 3D accelerated 2D graphics library as my custom blitters use lots of memory and are not really that fast (hardware is always much faster) at least not fast enought to get full-screen 640x480x24 scroll with a 'normal' machine.
Kudos on BreakQuest, great game. Sub-pixel sprites work really well, I think I'll try implementing them myself!
That may be over stating the issue. Ricochet is all software rendered which proves it is possible. And I believe it was a factor in the success. But it is hard to tell how big a factor it was. I think saying it was a huge factor may be a little much. I preach that software is possible and desirable. But not all desirable things are worth the effort. It is also desirable to finish your game in a reasonable amount of time and add lots of cool features to it. You have to balance it all out. For the record: Ricochet Lost Worlds runs at 800X600X16 bit, does lots of alpha blending, and runs well on a 400 MHz computer. Big Kahuna Reef runs at 800X600X24 bit, does even more alpha blending plus scaling and tinting and sub pixel dest rendering, and run well on a 400 MHz machine. Wik runs at 800X600X24 bit, does lots of alpha, scaling, rotating, and sub pixel dest and runs well on a 400 MHz machine. None of these games use Direct3D, OpenGL, or any 3D hardware acceleration. They used Direct Draw to get a point to video memory and do page flipping. Everything else is done is software.
Hi, without denying the obvious success and thus "proof of concept" of the named games: any computer having been installed in the last 5 years has at least a GeForce-2-compatible 3D accelerator, right ? I mean, except for laptops.
Well, whats the base computer a casual game should be designed for ? I mean, the last computer I built myself 4 years ago had a TnT2 gfxcard in it, which did pretty decent Dx7 games. And so I assume that a year before that the Riva128 or tnT1 or Voodoo 2 were standard (year 2000). At the time I was working in a small game company and Black&White just appeared etc. So I guess, if You do not support 3D hardware, You should also not aim at any CPU faster than 233 Mhz, just because my oldest machine here is a '97 233 Mhz Pentium 2 that came with a Matrox Mystique 220 (which *already* did 3D games like G-Police, Resident Evil etc). So that was 8 years ago. Conclusion: if You are targetting non-3D hardware, Your target platform is a Pentium 2 300 Mhz, 64 MB RAM, Matrox-like gfxcard. Which also means that resolutions like 800x600 already become a bit problematic, and I also suppose these customers still have drivers from 1998 in their machines... Personally, I am rather targetting a 800 Mhz CPU, 64 MB RAM, TnT2/Dx7/Dx8 machine, which leaves me enough technical space for 3D games and performs well with any 2D games up to 1024x768x32b... opinions ?
Well, it's not a hardware problem - it's a software problem. The unusable default (or simply outdated) drivers are to blame. It's really hard to find PCs without some kind of acceleration these days. Y'know... there are people out there who see something on their screen and think that everything is working perfectly fine. That's the whole problem.
I think basing your target specs on what you personally own or have owned is a bad idea. For instance, since the original Voodoo came out all of my computers have had a mid- to high-end (for consumers) 3d card in them. That can hardly be expected of the general population. I replaced my TNT2 just before Quake III was released but my parents' computer has a TNT2 in it right now (mine, actually). All of my 3d cards have been serious gamer cards from 3dfx (RIP), NVidia and later ATI - also not to be expected when cheesy hardware is standard on the cheaper retail systems. The only really good hardware stats I've seen are Valve's surveys, for which the respondents consisted of mostly hardcore gamers, not necessarily the target market for anybody in here. Having said all of that, I don't have a better idea.
I think there are alot of machines out there with the Intel graphics chips. For most desktop Dells, thats the default graphics. They are really fill rate limited. My target is a 800MHz with the Intel crap or 500MHz with GForce2.
The question is, is your target audience computer literate enough to install new video drivers? It is almost safe to assume they have a “GeForce-2-compatible 3D accelerator†but it is much less safe to assume they have working software to let you access the hardware. You should be okay if you use an old 3D API (like Direct 3D 7) or if you are confident that your target audience is willing and able to install new version of Direct X and/or video drivers. Using Open GL or DirectX 9 means that your game will not work “out of the box†for many causal users. They will have to tweak with things they don’t like to mess with before the game will work. My mantra is “3D hardware acceleration is not a hardware issue, it is a software issue.†It doesn’t matter if they have the hardware unless they have the software to support it. And many do not. The fact that it can be fixed easily with a software download does not make the problem go away. Many "casual" users are not willing or able to do that. But if you aren't targeting the casual users than this shouldn't be as much of a problem.
I am using DX8 hardware to write my 2D game. I wish I could use pure 2D and still have the desired effects (rotation, scaling, alphablending, tinting), but it is too much work for me to set it up like that and get it to run fast. Maybe someday i'll take up SDL and integrate AntiGrain to get good results, then I will write 2D games pure software. Right now though, I use HGE, and it was easy for me to get the game going, because I spent the time working on the game instead of technology. Would be nice if someone released a 2D engine that is crossplatform and has the 2D capability mensioned above.
A lot of basic new computers sold today don't have seperate graphics cards, they usually use integrated ones and then they have to share the system memory. Nonz.