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DarkBASIC Professional Discussion / Dark Basic Elite - A Question

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EdzUp
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Posted: 1st Aug 2014 17:47
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What I was inferring was that all the competition has cross platform IDEs and can release on all desktop platforms

-EdzUp
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Green Gandalf
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Playing: Malevolence:Sword of Ahkranox, Skyrim, Civ6.
Posted: 1st Aug 2014 18:54
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Quote: "They probably do look that way - the game is spectacularly detailed for such an old game (enabled by fully pre-rendering), so I suspect you just weren't expecting such an old game to look so good"


That explanation makes sense.

Regarding my earlier claim that the game runs fine, I ought to add a few minor provisos:

1. I think there should be an opening video which I don't seem to get now - hardly a show stopper since I often skip that anyway.

2. The Save Game As window doesn't seem to fit on my screen for some reason. I expected to see a Save button somewhere but I don't. Fortunately I can still enter the filename and then just hit Enter to save. Again, hardly a show stopper.

3. Long hints don't show up correctly and get truncated. That is a bit annoying when you get completely stumped and the "solution" hint says something like "Go left, then right, right and right again and when you reach the tree then ". Of course that might be part of the puzzle ...

4. Two things to note during installation: (a) when the installer prompts to install DirectX6 I said Yes and hoped for the best, (b) similarly the installer prompted me to install Quicktime 4, again I said Yes. No obvious problems as a result.

5. The only instruction I didn't follow was the target installation directory, I changed it to a folder in My Documents which is where I put all my games (when possible).

There was no messing about with compatibility modes, screen resolutions, etc, the game just ran in full screen on this laptop which has a native resolution of 1600x900. When I first ran the game I saw a brief message telling me that Myst had changed the resolution to 640x480. That was it. I don't know whether there are different versions of The Masterpiece Edition around.



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Clonkex
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Location: Northern Tablelands, NSW, Australia
Posted: 2nd Aug 2014 03:26
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Quote: "What I was inferring was that all the competition has cross platform IDEs and can release on all desktop platforms"


I know, but I was saying that it doesn't matter, and that despite most (not all) of the competition being crossplatform, a large percentage of released games only run on Windows.

Quote: "1. I think there should be an opening video which I don't seem to get now - hardly a show stopper since I often skip that anyway."


Yes. You should see the shape of a guy falling through stars and a book falling with voiced narration (I think), or somesuch. Also, you should see the Cyan Worlds logo thing with the spinning sphere that becomes a C.

Quote: "2. The Save Game As window doesn't seem to fit on my screen for some reason. I expected to see a Save button somewhere but I don't. Fortunately I can still enter the filename and then just hit Enter to save. Again, hardly a show stopper."


Probably due to running in 640x480 - Windows isn't designed for such low resolutions any more.

Quote: "3. Long hints don't show up correctly and get truncated."


You could try using "Disable visual themes" and "Disable desktop composition" in the compatibility tab of the exe.

Quote: "4. Two things to note during installation: (a) when the installer prompts to install DirectX6 I said Yes and hoped for the best, (b) similarly the installer prompted me to install Quicktime 4, again I said Yes. No obvious problems as a result."


Why would there be a problem?

Quote: "5. The only instruction I didn't follow was the target installation directory, I changed it to a folder in My Documents which is where I put all my games (when possible)."


I'm the exact opposite. I try to install every game to Program Files (or (x86)) whenever possible. It probably makes it harder for me, though, what with permissions and all that...


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EdzUp
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Posted: 2nd Aug 2014 04:53
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Quote: "I know, but I was saying that it doesn't matter, and that despite most (not all) of the competition being crossplatform, a large percentage of released games only run on Windows."

This being true for the most part BUT it is changing, if TGC would embrace cross platform programming now instead of tying itself to Windows then I'm sure more people would use or move to their products.

Cross platform support is one thing I look for in a language as I normally program on Linux or OSX I rarely write code on windows anymore and I know several programmers that do the same.

-EdzUp
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Clonkex
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Posted: 2nd Aug 2014 05:02 Edited at: 2nd Aug 2014 05:07
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Quote: "This being true for the most part BUT it is changing, if TGC would embrace cross platform programming now instead of tying itself to Windows then I'm sure more people would use or move to their products."


True enough. I have to admit that, despite my arguments, I also look for crossplatform support in a language and frequently wish DBPro was updated more. It has SO many plugins and extensions and it's SO easy to use that it's always my first choice for making a game....before I realise that for the game to be successful, it needs to be on more than Windows


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EdzUp
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Posted: 2nd Aug 2014 05:15
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Games can be successful no matter the platform as long as there is enough paying customers to buy the product, for example Leadwerks engine kickstarter got more from the Linux group than any other. This means the money is there just TGC isn't looking to sell to them, and its a myth that Linux users get everything free there are loads of 'paid for' programs on there too.

All Lee would have to do is ditch the Direct X and move to OpenGL for graphics and maybe OpenAL for audio, I use ENet for networking and finally lodepng for textures. Yes I'm writing my own C++ engine but I still would love to see a cross platform DBPro/Elite.

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Green Gandalf
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Playing: Malevolence:Sword of Ahkranox, Skyrim, Civ6.
Posted: 2nd Aug 2014 12:30
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Quote: "Yes. You should see the shape of a guy falling through stars and a book falling with voiced narration (I think), or somesuch. Also, you should see the Cyan Worlds logo thing with the spinning sphere that becomes a C."


The two videos are on the CD and both play when I open them - and then I realised I had in fact seen them when I first ran the game a few days ago. Perhaps they are only run when first played? But in that case there must be some data stored somewhere which records that. I haven't found it yet - unless it's the mere presence of a saved file that switches off the intros.

Anyway, the important thing is that the game plays and all the important stuff looks and sounds fine.



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Dragon slayer
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Posted: 3rd Aug 2014 03:22
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GOG has the Myst and Rivin games
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Clonkex
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Posted: 3rd Aug 2014 06:47
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Quote: "GOG has the Myst and Rivin games"


Thought it might.


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