With more and more languages and personal opinions on which language is faster, I''ve been thinking about learning Java, because it''s basically a language of it''s own, to get away from C vs C++ stuff. I''m a newbie, so what I''d like to know is Java, by itself(not excluding the JNI and compiler type for the optimum speed that felonios was talking about) capable of making a good 2d game? If it is, not saying it isn''t, but where the HELL are they? And another question, how did they make that game burning metal 3d? that game looks awesome! was there anything they needed specifically to make a game that great in java? any type of API or something? Please reply, Greg K.

Oh crap, this was meant for the java development section, oops.

I don't know of any games made in java but I know of a lot more games comming out that use Java as a scripting language (most recent being Vampire). That is actually brilliant.

I hope the next generation of programming languages will take a clue from the way java is structured and make it even more robust -- speed wise. That would also be brilliant.

"Five passengers set sail that day, for a three hour tour, a three hour tour...."

Edited by - Joviex on June 16, 2000 10:01:04 PM

Can Java games use 3d acceleration? If they can, how come I haven''t seen any? And If they can''t, why not?

There have been a couple of 3d games with Java the Java3D API isn''t very good due to it is slow but I have heard there was a OpenGL port to Java which is faster than the Java3d API by Sun(not positive on the OpenGL Part)

If you use Java3D it will be accelerated, but Java2D I don''t think so. One reason no games are out for this api are it''s very new with probably not much more then a thousand people using it.
The api can run layered on openGL or DirectX. I don''t think it is too slow. You could have a playstation quality game I believe, but would have to be a master to out do DreamCast with Java3D.

If your wondering, here is an example of the speed I''m getting. The scene is about 6000 polys. The car is 2500 and is always on screen so with the background there is about 3000 poly''s at any given time. I am running at 15 fps(20 on NT). This may sound slow, but I only have a PII 400, and a old 8 mg video card. What I am getting at is that if you shoot systems with PIII''s and good V-cards, then your game should be able to have thousands of polys on the screen while still maintaining 30-60 fps. I''ve read posts of people doing over 100,000 poly''s at 60fps with a top end system with pure Java3D, but it''s not verified. So write your game in Java, how else are you going to get people to play your game if it can''t run on the web!

I thought if you just used the JNI you can call all sorts of things Native?? Like DirectX and OpenGL. That makes Java3D look like a dog pile honestly.

I have seen a few websites doing the directX thing with java to present models for mods they are making. Course, using DX limits it to Win platforms, which is not good, but that is the right direction? no?

"Five passengers set sail that day, for a three hour tour, a three hour tour...."

Joviex: But, as I understand it, the web browser''s sandbox philosophy won''t let you use JNI (unless your applet is signed), so I think what some people have done is have the user download a set of core classes and install them on their system. That way when the user wants to play one of the applets all they have to do is load the page up and it will work like any normal applet. However I don''t see the point in having a user download anything to play an applet. What''s the point? You might as well have made a C++ application to begin with! For said reason, I''m placing my bet that somehow Sun is going to improve Java3D enough to where it can do games, or that someone else will do it even better. As of right now, things are admittedly looking bleak, but who knows, an open source project to implement a good 3d library for Java might be the solution, or not, but we''ll just have to sit tight for a while and stick with what Sun gave us.

joeG

You might wanna check out Magician. It''s an OpenGL binding for Java. Basically they did all the JNI work for you and put it into a fairly neat bundle.
They''ve done ports for the major systems (Win9x, Linux, MacOS) plus a few others including Irix . . .

It''s moderately cheap to license Magician for a shareware game (100 pounds -- 1000 pounds for commercial software), the API provides calls to all GL and GLU functions, and you can try out the API for free.

Visit http://arcana.symbolstone.org/products/magician/index.html

Of course Magician development has slowed down quite a bit over the past year. I just hope that it doesn''t go under before I can finish prototyping my game. Support for OpenGL extensions is almost nil at this point. Basically they just provide some batch files to help do your JNI thing to access a particular extension. Supposedly they''re going to write better support for OpenGL extensions in the future. Heh heh -- NV_register_combiners and ARB_multitexture will probably force me to get into JNI sooner than I expected.

-Ernest

I agree with JoeG. Sun are going to have to do something about Java3d. It''s all very well them going on about the API as a tool for scientists and stuff, and putting up demos of that kind of thing, but the core thing people want to use a 3d API for is to make games. I can understand them wanting to avoid tying down to one operating system (particularly Windows ), but they''re going to have to make some compromises somewhere.

Speaking of Java3d, why isn''t it part of the core Java product?

Neil