Sorry your browser is not supported!

You are using an outdated browser that does not support modern web technologies, in order to use this site please update to a new browser.

Browsers supported include Chrome, FireFox, Safari, Opera, Internet Explorer 10+ or Microsoft Edge.

DarkBASIC Discussion / Dark Basic Classic is about to prove itself superior to all other game creator products

Author
Message
Medusa
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 7th Sep 2003
Location:
Posted: 31st Oct 2009 21:37
Link
Kevin Picone - 'how many complete first person shooters have been created with DBC ?'
excellent point - none
Latch - refers to not so much what I say but how I say it
You can't stimulate debate without prodding.
By next week my half a million polygon level will be bigger!
I will have a giant pre built level, tanks and everything possibly with a rail yard, factory site etc.
Why doesn't somebody do the same with dbpro to show the difference?
Despite my attitude I still do appreciate all the comments and suggestions made by yourselves, good and bad.

mpc
Back to top
Profile PM
Caleb1994
15
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 10th Oct 2008
Location: The Internet you idiot!
Posted: 1st Nov 2009 05:15
Link
Quote: "excellent point - none"

[href=http://starwraith3dgames.home.att.net/go.htm]
http://starwraith3dgames.home.att.net/go.htm[/href]

I think that counts as first person

New Site! Check it out \/
Back to top
Profile PM Website
thenerd
15
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 9th Mar 2009
Location: Boston, USA
Posted: 1st Nov 2009 15:39 Edited at: 1st Nov 2009 15:39
Link
but not a shooter. and, the next one is going to be dbpro...


forever loading...
Back to top
Profile PM Email
Caleb1994
15
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 10th Oct 2008
Location: The Internet you idiot!
Posted: 1st Nov 2009 19:56
Link
Oh well still, it is amazing lol shows what you can do if you put your mind to it

New Site! Check it out \/
Back to top
Profile PM Website
TheComet
16
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 18th Oct 2007
Location: I`m under ur bridge eating ur goatz.
Posted: 1st Nov 2009 21:40
Link
Quote: "By next week my half a million polygon level will be bigger!
I will have a giant pre built level, tanks and everything possibly with a rail yard, factory site etc."


I seriously doubt THAT will run any faster than 2 fps. Do you know what fps is? It stands for first person shooter, but also for frames per second. Loading a level that big would slow down the fps to about 2, which means it's going to be unplayable, because most games run at 60 fps.

What fps rate is it running at now? In case you don't know how to find out, put this in your main loop:

text 0,50,"screen FPS : "+str$(screen fps())

TheComet


Make the paths of your enemies easier with WaypointPro!
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Cash Curtis II
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 8th Apr 2005
Location: Corpus Christi Texas
Posted: 3rd Nov 2009 08:03
Link
Quote: "One person, any one at all, show me something really fantastic that you made on dbpro demonstrating all these fancy lods, mipmaps and ai. Let me see a great example of it's shadows and physics and all the rest. First person shooter or third, any one of these will do."

Click on my sig. There's a YouTube video here...

It's a 3rd person shooter that has shadows, AI, physics, lightmapping, mipmapping, animation blending, blah blah blah.

DBP's Exclude Object On is the greatest command ever. That command alone (a late addition, I might add) makes DBP more powerful and capable of much larger games.

I used to use DBC. It's easy to learn and fun. I enjoyed using it. But, I dropped it completely for DBP when I compared the features.

The thing with DBP is that you have to know how to get the most out of it. Since it is more capable I think lots of people start larger, more ambitious projects that they aren't capable of finishing. You definitely have to use it correctly or you won't get much out of it.


Download the game!
Back to top
Profile PM
TheComet
16
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 18th Oct 2007
Location: I`m under ur bridge eating ur goatz.
Posted: 3rd Nov 2009 08:27
Link
Yep, click on the link. It's awesome!

I'm still waiting for you to tell me the fps rate...

TheComet


Make the paths of your enemies easier with WaypointPro!
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
pcRaider
16
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 30th May 2007
Location:
Posted: 3rd Nov 2009 10:58
Link
I want you to test comparison of this.
How is it displayed Fps?

DBp


DBc
Back to top
Profile PM
Medusa
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 7th Sep 2003
Location:
Posted: 4th Nov 2009 22:06
Link
Working hard to complete level.
Main problem does not look like it's going to be polygons - dbc seems able to take all the polygons you can throw at it - but rather the size of the x file.
Will look at the game - Cash Curtis II recommends.
As for fps. 30 fps is the maximum required for 'persistence of vision' this not only preserves processing wasted on needless rendering but ensures that the game runs at the same speed on all machines. So I always lock the fps at 30.
I accept however that the owners of decent graphic cards would like to know just how much better their machine is responding and fps is a definite sign.
The next demo within a few days will include the fps for the benefit of those with superior machines and cards.
As for anyone who can't get a decent fps running the game you really need to get a new computer. The old computer making and running the demo is
XP Professional
Processor GenuineIntel ~2999 Mhz
Total Physical Memory 512.00 MB
Available Physical Memory 152.25 MB
Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB
Page File Space 1.20 GB
If you are still using a slower machine than this you really need to update.
The graphics card alone needed to run fpsc10 on vista was a geforce with 750mb memory.
The internal graphics card in this machine is only a hundred!
So no complaints about running slow on old slow machines please.

mpc
Back to top
Profile PM
thenerd
15
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 9th Mar 2009
Location: Boston, USA
Posted: 5th Nov 2009 00:18
Link
can't wait to see it done!
i am not being sarcastic, i really want to see it. the game could turn out quite well...


forever loading...
Back to top
Profile PM Email
Latch
17
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 23rd Jul 2006
Location:
Posted: 5th Nov 2009 01:05
Link
Quote: "As for fps. 30 fps is the maximum required for 'persistence of vision' this not only preserves processing wasted on needless rendering but ensures that the game runs at the same speed on all machines. So I always lock the fps at 30."

The SYNCronization rate in DBC is not the rate at which the screen is redrawn. That is controlled by your monitor and your graphics adapter. The FPS rate in DBC is a calculation of how many loop iterations can occur in 1000 milliseconds(ms). For example, it takes 16 to 17 ms to run a single loop at a sync rate of 60.

1000/60 = 16.6667
1000/16.6667 = 59.9

Don't fall into the trap of thinking you are doing unnecessary rendering at a high sync rate - because the rendering is happening anyway in the back buffer - and the swap from back buffer to front buffer is just waiting for it's sync timing. However, at 1000 fps, which is much faster than any monitor can redraw the screen, you won't see overlapped rendered images (tearing) because the REDRAW (the actual drawn frames per second) is limited to your monitor's refresh rate. But, your loops and maths will be running much faster than they would be at a sync rate of 30.

Enjoy your day.
Back to top
Profile PM
TheComet
16
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 18th Oct 2007
Location: I`m under ur bridge eating ur goatz.
Posted: 5th Nov 2009 12:20
Link
How come most games are at 60 fps?

TheComet


Make the paths of your enemies easier with WaypointPro!
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Latch
17
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 23rd Jul 2006
Location:
Posted: 5th Nov 2009 16:54
Link
Quote: "How come most games are at 60 fps?"

Timing and syncronization are related to the pictures that are presented on screen - 'tis true. Most games are at 60 fps because that is a standard monitor redraw rate. The game is syncronized to redraw and display it's individual picture cells (like the frames of a movie) with the standard lowest common denominator monitor refresh rate. FPS and syncronization aren't necessarily the same thing so they are not interchangeable. FPS, I believe, is a little misleading of a term in DBC.

FPS in DBC gives an indication of the speed at which it is performing it's processing. This does relate to how fast the rendered images are updated for display but you can't jump to thinking an FPS showing 250 is redrawing the screen 250 times per second - faster than most monitors could refresh the display. If that were the case, you'd have old and new pictures overlapping parts of each other (tearing).

FPS in DBC is a time indicator relating to how many loop iterations can occur in 1000 milliseconds under ideal circumstances. If the FPS rate in terms of being able to swap the back and front buffers exceeds the monitors redraw ability, then the actual swapping of the screens is limited to the monitors refresh. The background processing, however, continues at the higher rate. But, if the FPS is low enough, due to heavy math, graphical processing or just a low set sync rate, then the swapping of screens can occur so infrequently that an actual stuttering of the motion can be visible. So, for games in DBC one can probably get optimal performance by setting the SYNC RATE to 0 so all the processes happen as fast as possible, but control the speed of the game with timing mechanisms.

Enjoy your day.
Back to top
Profile PM
TDK
Retired Moderator
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 19th Nov 2002
Location: UK
Posted: 5th Nov 2009 20:59
Link
Yes it is confusing.

In DBC I was rarely getting more than 60 FPS - even if I set Sync Rate to 0 (zero). I have an nVidia GeForce 8500GT with 1 Gig of memory in my Quad core machine so this was disappointing.

As the max refresh rate of my flat screen monitors is 60 Hertz, I mistakenly connected them and blamed the screens.

However, modifying DB's INI file means Screen FPS() now shows the FPS as many hundreds, so it wasn't the screens after all.

The FPS I guess is more of a guide to how smooth a 3D animation would be - rather than how many literal frames per second are displayed.

It's for that reason, setting the Sync Rate doesn't equate to the same speed on all machines and you have to use timers.

TDK

* TDK's Web Site *

Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
TheComet
16
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 18th Oct 2007
Location: I`m under ur bridge eating ur goatz.
Posted: 6th Nov 2009 07:18
Link
Quote: "In DBC I was rarely getting more than 60 FPS - even if I set Sync Rate to 0 (zero). I have an nVidia GeForce 8500GT with 1 Gig of memory in my Quad core machine so this was disappointing."


While we are at it, did anyone figure why the fps lock breaks if you play some music?

TheComet


Make the paths of your enemies easier with WaypointPro!
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Latch
17
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 23rd Jul 2006
Location:
Posted: 6th Nov 2009 09:55
Link
Quote: "While we are at it, did anyone figure why the fps lock breaks if you play some music?"

If I were to guess, it's because DBC uses the winmm.dll (multimedia dll) which requires a very precise timing clock to play media. I think the latest versions of windows rely very heavily on directx to a greater extent than the versions that were available when DBC was written. To be safe in terms of monitor refresh rates, I think the lastest versions of directx have 60 fps defaulted to; and DBC starts and tries to maintain this. When you load and play music, it is through the winmm.dll which forces a timing change/request and this timing forces DBC to tell directx what's up.

Enjoy your day.
Back to top
Profile PM
Medusa
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 7th Sep 2003
Location:
Posted: 6th Nov 2009 20:44
Link
My reference to fps is based solely on photographic principles.
e.g. a video of 30 fps will look constant.
The reason for applying the same principle to games is you seek to restrict the speed of the game to real time.
Allowing the game to 'do it's own thing' as in as many frames as it likes does allow "your loops and maths to move faster" and you can end up with the same problem that occured in the initial Quake 3 demo where the enemy bots were moving like lightning whereas you the player only got what was left of the processing power.
I've no doubt that everyone has played similar games with the same frustrating effect that your player seems to move and aim in real time whereas the enemy seems to be superfast.
Limiting the fps to 30 frames solves this and keeps everyone in real time. The only time I could condone allowing the machine as many frames as it likes would be in a very visual game involving lots of particle effects.
In my opinion even though you restrict the game to 30 fps it should'nt really prevent the computer doing it's own calculations in the background. Calculations which happen much faster than the screen refresh rates anyway.

mpc
Back to top
Profile PM
thenerd
15
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 9th Mar 2009
Location: Boston, USA
Posted: 6th Nov 2009 21:31
Link
it's why people use timer-based movement. high fps, same speed for all the enemies and players.


forever loading...
Back to top
Profile PM Email
Phaelax
DBPro Master
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 16th Apr 2003
Location: Metropia
Posted: 6th Nov 2009 23:43
Link
Quote: "In DBC I was rarely getting more than 60 FPS - even if I set Sync Rate to 0 (zero). I have an nVidia GeForce 8500GT with 1 Gig of memory in my Quad core machine so this was disappointing."


I'm pretty sure there was a display setting in Windows that could fix this for DBC. Something to do with uncapping the vertical refresh rate or turning off/on something. I can't remember for sure, but it wasn't until I made that change that DBC let me hit higher than 60, but then again it might have been a Win2K specific issue.

Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Latch
17
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 23rd Jul 2006
Location:
Posted: 7th Nov 2009 00:30
Link
This ground has been covered quite a bit. Just check the stickies at the top of the board.

Quote: "In my opinion even though you restrict the game to 30 fps it should'nt really prevent the computer doing it's own calculations in the background."

If the computer is capable of running the game at 30 fps, then it will run the game at 30 fps, shouldn't be a hinderence. But if the computer can run the game @ 500 fps, and you use timers and other mechanisms to control the speed of the action as if it would be at 30 fps, then the motion will be much smoother.

Enjoy your day.
Back to top
Profile PM
Medusa
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 7th Sep 2003
Location:
Posted: 18th Nov 2009 21:34
Link
Here's the 'fall out city' complete with tanks.
The enemy tanks have a simple system, their turrets will rotate to follow you and if close enough they will fire at you.
No enemy tank movement worked out yet.
Reduced textures to 512 for those that can't get 1024 to work on their machine - looks much the same.
fps() command refuses to work for some reason yet works on my other stuff!
Player tank is fully functional with a rotating turret, breech fire etc.
Code for tank is a mod of Lee Bamber's original tank demo.
Tank model is 'Darkmatter' vol 1 only with gun turret and body separate to allow in game animation for the gun turret.
Sounds are all my own work.
Enjoy

mpc

Attachments

Login to view attachments
Back to top
Profile PM
Cash Curtis II
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 8th Apr 2005
Location: Corpus Christi Texas
Posted: 20th Nov 2009 21:42
Link
I have Windows Vista. It didn't run at all. When I double clicked it, it told me "darkcity.exe has stopped working..."

How is this whole 'dbc is superior to DBP' thing working out?


Download the game!
Back to top
Profile PM
Caleb1994
15
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 10th Oct 2008
Location: The Internet you idiot!
Posted: 20th Nov 2009 23:10
Link
It runs great for me. I wouldn't say dbc is superior to all other products, but this does show that dbc can make some good stuff! Good Job!

New Site! Check it out \/
Back to top
Profile PM Website
Medusa
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 7th Sep 2003
Location:
Posted: 23rd Nov 2009 16:13
Link
Cash Curtis II 'Dark Basic' on Vista
As far as I know - don't quote me - Dark Basic does not run on Vista because Vista uses a different Direct X.
Even the old 'run as previous windows' instruction will not get around this.
I have a vista as well as the xp so I found this out myself.
Would be nice if it could run on vista.
Maybe Lee Bamber will relent and issue an updated vista version which could include the nice collision dll by sparky.
Just a thought but TDKs Matedit would make a nice update with it as well.
I am sure a lot of dark basic users would like to see this happen.

mpc
Back to top
Profile PM
Lucifer
18
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 26th Dec 2005
Location:
Posted: 23rd Nov 2009 20:36
Link
Quote: "Dark Basic does not run on Vista because Vista uses a different Direct X."


wrong, you just have to include the missing dll in the project's folder.

Back to top
Profile PM
Cash Curtis II
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 8th Apr 2005
Location: Corpus Christi Texas
Posted: 23rd Nov 2009 22:10 Edited at: 23rd Nov 2009 22:13
Link
Quote: "Maybe Lee Bamber will relent and issue an updated vista version which could include the nice collision dll by sparky."

Sparky's collision does work with DBC. Do you mean something else?

Quote: "One person, any one at all, show me something really fantastic that you made on dbpro demonstrating all these fancy lods, mipmaps and ai. Let me see a great example of it's shadows and physics and all the rest. First person shooter or third, any one of these will do.
Otherwise all that exists are the same terrible demos that emerged at the start of dbc concerning how to take the square root of a round cabbage and evolve it into a complete turkey.
I have no doubt that either everything will fall silent or I'll get a multitude of hate posts but it would be great if just one person would rise to the challenge."

@Medusa -
Did you take a look at my game? Any game I've made, really.


Download the game!
Back to top
Profile PM
demons breath
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 4th Oct 2003
Location: Surrey, UK
Posted: 24th Nov 2009 03:55
Link
Medusa take a look at some of the posts on program announcements/WIP - Cash, Butterfingers and a few people have been flying the flag for years - better than I could ever do and the programs aren't even finished yet.

Back to top
Profile PM Website
Medusa
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 7th Sep 2003
Location:
Posted: 24th Nov 2009 15:28
Link
Lucifer - include the dll in project folder
I see what you mean
Thanks

mpc
Back to top
Profile PM
Medusa
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 7th Sep 2003
Location:
Posted: 27th Nov 2009 15:29
Link
Well over a thousand people have seen my fall out city now assuming they took the time to download it and play it.
I intend to use a very low poly version of it for the ruined city fpsc9 xmas comp as a surround.
Maybe a demo at that level will convince people of the merits of low poly single levels for scenery.
It will be a good test at any rate.

mpc
Back to top
Profile PM
thenerd
15
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 9th Mar 2009
Location: Boston, USA
Posted: 2nd Dec 2009 22:41
Link
looks and plays great!

only thing,
I think if you textured the level with a lighter texture, maybe sand, it would look really goo.


forever loading...
Back to top
Profile PM Email
Back to top

Login to post a reply

Server time is: 2024-05-06 21:50:12
Your offset time is: 2024-05-06 21:50:12