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AppGameKit Classic Chat / final question before i buy AGK

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IBOL
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Posted: 3rd Mar 2012 19:08
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do AppGameKit programs require any kind of 'player' or any additional downloads
to run on windows computers (laptop/desktop, not phones or 'devices') ?

because if i can use agk to replace dbp, i will do it.
i find dbp required downloads of dx9.0c painful for end users,
and i get complaints about both .exe size and 100% cpu usage.

agk doesn't do these bad things, but lack of additional downloads would be the clincher.

please and thank you,
bob

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Daniel TGC
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Posted: 3rd Mar 2012 19:25
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On Windows you don't need a player. It compiles as an EXE and runs.

AGK is CPU efficient otherwise it would kill the battery of most mobile devices pretty quick. The windows version doesn't require direct x or any other downloads to run it's applications.
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DVader
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Posted: 3rd Mar 2012 19:34
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I'm pretty sure AppGameKit uses openGL for it's engine. I certainly haven't had any issues regarding direct x at all. I think AppGameKit uses a player on every device, but it is pretty much automatic on windows. I don't think you would have the same sort of problems DB can have. I found the odd windows update stopping old DB programs working to be horrible, as I lost good little games I made that were working fine before, but I had long since lost the source code, and so could not recompile with a new version.
AGK is also way faster (2D obviously) than DB, and it is rare to find your game struggling speed wise as the program gets more complicated, as DB tends to do on occasion.
There are a lack of commands in AppGameKit compared to DB, but that will be improved over time, 50 new commands coming in the next update yay!
Overall, I have been coding more using AppGameKit over the last few months, than I have with DB for years. Try the free demo out. It should be enough for you to test out windows apps for yourself.

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baxslash
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Posted: 3rd Mar 2012 19:46
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IBOL, I am certain you won't be disappointed. Although it doesn't have 3D yet it is a much more logical language than DBP and is really easy to distribute. If you are worried about distributing media that is not compiled in you may need to get smart packer or something similar but I am hoping AppGameKit will get the option to compile media in on at least some platforms eventually.

There are guides for developing games for all the major platforms too and a growing community of very active users. I've lost count of the AppGameKit games that have been published already on iOS, Android, AppUp, etc.

Your experience in DBP will not be lost as the languages are so similar.

Would love to see what you can do in AppGameKit!

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IBOL
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Posted: 3rd Mar 2012 21:31
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thank you all for your right-on responses.

i have already written some stuff with the trial,
and i really like AGK. you're right about the logical commands.

the one thing i *hate* is the lack of DATA statements.
i don't care how 'legacy' they are, i find them useful.

my immediate plan: 7DRL 2012 with agk
(7 day rogue-like) coming march 10th.

thanks again,
bob

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bjadams
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Posted: 3rd Mar 2012 22:46
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IBOL if you don't need 3D for now, BUY AppGameKit right away!
AGK is OpenGL based, so you don't need directX. Your exe will work on any PC!
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IBOL
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Posted: 4th Mar 2012 06:02
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nope. don't need 3d.

another question though:
i was under the impression that .bmp images were not supported by AppGameKit,
but i find that i can load and use them?
does anyone else use .bmp's, or is there some reason not to use them?
(my images are 32x32, so they are only 4k each)

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bjadams
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Posted: 4th Mar 2012 08:44
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everyone uses pngs or jpgs these days
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kamac
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Posted: 4th Mar 2012 09:26
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Don't use BMPs! Size comparison:

I have a 640x640 image. It's .png version is 24,6 KB and it's .bmp version is 1,56 MB + No alpha channel.

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IBOL
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Posted: 4th Mar 2012 18:05
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as i said my images are 32x32, 4k each. i am just asking about
whether agk actually supports .bmp, or if they're going to take it out as soon as i get comfortable with them.

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kamac
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Posted: 4th Mar 2012 18:41
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I've just tested and .bmp files are working fine.

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DVader
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Posted: 4th Mar 2012 19:00
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I am not sure if phones and such support bmp or not, probably as it's been round a long time. Windows should be fine as you say. You do get a massive saving in size though. I can't see any reason not to use png in AppGameKit, unless maybe you have loads of pre-made sprites in BMP. Even then you could convert em fairly quickly. I would try to use png, as even though 4k each sounds small, you might need a lot, and phones have a smaller memory capacity than even the most basic pc by todays standards. Plus you want as fast loading speed as possible, both on a fully compiled project and when testing using the wireless network. It can take some transferring across if you have a lot of images etc.

Oh I agree 100% on the data command! I hate with a loathing having to create and read strings, just to get some data into a loop. I really, really hope that it makes it into the new commands, along with savearray() It makes things much easier to do quickly, when say, saving level data for instance.

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Paul Johnston
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Posted: 5th Mar 2012 16:41
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PNG and JPG are supported across all platforms, BMP is supported on most platforms including Windows, but not Android. It may support BMP in future if I write my own parser for it but I haven't had any demand for it, and as others have said they take up a lot of space.
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IBOL
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Posted: 6th Mar 2012 04:07
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yeah, i have started the process of converting to .pngs.
yes, i have a ton of .bmp's
and my old copy of photoshop can't deal with .png's,
so that's part of my problem.
by i'm converting...

but i ordered AppGameKit on saturday morning, and it's monday night and i still haven't heard anything.

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baxslash
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Posted: 6th Mar 2012 10:59
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You can batch convert images using IrfanView and there's a plugin to batch convert for GIMP. Might speed things up?

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