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Dark GDK / Are TGC still interested in DGDK.NET ?

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thierry st malo
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Posted: 18th Jun 2008 20:04 Edited at: 18th Jun 2008 20:14
The question is in the title.

To me, their complete silence for such a long time, without deigning to answer a single question gets, shall I say, vexing. Personally, I begin to resent it as contemptuous. A formal statement in ANY direction would be most welcome.

Thierry
Zuka
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Posted: 18th Jun 2008 22:08
Maybe they're working too hard on those little banners up across from the Developer Forum link.

If you can do any models for FW, reply to the FleetWars thread.

Click here!
Mahoney
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Posted: 18th Jun 2008 22:11


I do love those things, though.
kBessa
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Posted: 20th Jun 2008 01:17
Hey Thierry,

Just show up at the channel: #dgdk-net @ irc.devhat.net
Paul is there, and keep us informed. He said he is finishing the tutorials and demos, and is already making corrections to the library as he does it.

It's a "one man" work, so it takes time...
Mahoney
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Posted: 20th Jun 2008 01:25
Just one dude is working on it?
bjadams
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Posted: 20th Jun 2008 14:29
i thought that with the many years that DB is on the market and with the big userbase on these forums, and with affilations from Microsoft, these projects are more fit for a team than just 1 man.
Mike Johnson
TGC Developer
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Posted: 20th Jun 2008 15:33
Progress is being made. Will be news on this front as soon as possible.
lwatson
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Posted: 20th Jun 2008 15:34
Being a 1 man show myself for many of my companies offerings, I know full well the pain of listening to comments such as these...

"To me, their complete silence for such a long time, without deigning to answer a single question gets, shall I say, vexing. Personally, I begin to resent it as contemptuous. A formal statement in ANY direction would be most welcome."

I to have been waiting for what seems like forever however I do understand the issues....

Lonnie Allen Watson
rmag.blogspot.com (blog)
Niels Henriksen
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Posted: 20th Jun 2008 18:02
@Mike - what is "as soon as possible"? We have got that since february

I understand that if one man is working on it that it will take time, but then please inform us.

Niels Henriksen
www.tales-of-the-realms.com
if Microsoft can sell software with bugs, so can I.
Mike Johnson
TGC Developer
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Posted: 22nd Jun 2008 11:45
We have a working version. Most of the work that remains is on the documentation and tutorials. It is looking much closer now. Possibly can release within a few months time or earlier.
bjadams
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Posted: 22nd Jun 2008 13:02
what is the main advantage of have this .NET GDK for games making?

will we still be using VC++ as development lanaguage?

and will games also need .NET dependency apart from DX9 ?
Sephnroth
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Posted: 22nd Jun 2008 13:43
Dark GDK .NET is not a replacement for the DarkGDK that you use with vc++. Most vc++ users will probably not have much interest in it at all. The .NET library is for those wanting to code with VB, C#, etc.

Darn good for tools and level editors though so would compliment the c++ one well as part of a toolset.

Gervais
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Posted: 22nd Jun 2008 16:54
Mike,
It has been a very long time that Paul is working on this project and to my understanding of the previous release all you did have to do is to correct the wrapper to be in sink with the DarkGDK and release it to us which did not take that much time.
So what is it that required 6+ months of development? Did you rewrite the engine in manage direct x or some think is there so much more to the new engine
If possible we would appreciate to have some detail on what is coming. It would help to understand where this product is going and why the long delay.
To my understanding base on all the post that I could read on the subject the engine is done the new OOP interface is done and the doc is also done with the example so what are you waiting for is it the next release of the news letter or next holiday session.
bjadams
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Posted: 24th Jun 2008 16:47
Thanks a lot Sephnroth for your info.

However this is very worrying for me.

Will we ever see an update to DGDK?

DBpro 6.9 has AA, and DGDK lags behind especially when it comes to using shaders, as most of the shader stuff that works in DBpro does not work in DGDK...
JRH
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Posted: 25th Jun 2008 23:57
I think a lot of time has went into FPSC recently. Hi everyone, first time I've ever visited these boards.

Miguel Melo
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Posted: 28th Jun 2008 14:34
The problem with TGC is that there is always "a lot of time going into" something that is never the DGDK (inc. DGDK.Net). That's the main reason people end up defecting to other engines.

I have vague plans for World Domination
bjadams
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Posted: 28th Jun 2008 17:30
take for example Dark Physx for DGDK. This is a product which you buy, and you get the same treatment as DGDK, you never see an update...
jason p sage
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Posted: 30th Jun 2008 22:25
I've defected to homebrew engine in raw dx9.

However I still will be a regular for the Alien codec type stuff, dark matter if there are any more releases, and whatever FPSC stuff I can use as Direct.x models - I'll buy happily. I get ALL my game tools from here - and I might MIGHT venture out to try various modeling tools - but TGC is still "home".

I learned SO much using TGC that I can't knock them - any more than people can knock me for trying my hand at directx raw.

I learned that TGC does ALOT for you under the hood. Moving a camera with simple move commands, and pitch and roll - ahhh... the good old days LOL... its all a bit trickier in dx raw.

Though I have to say - going to RAW dx9 means in many ways I'm starting over yet again - so - even simple tasks aren't that simple - though the performance is unreal - but even with the new high performace benefits - I still see a major need to still optimize everything from plain old code to rendering techniques, frustrum and occlusion culling, quadtrees, etc....

The biggest joy is I now can go Windowed/fullscreen and back flawlessly! Not to mention put the dx9 (render) "device" on any window, videocard, monitor I want.. which is kinda neat - but actually complicated in many ways and makes you appreciate the DarkGDK and DBPro checklists for device capabilities

I didn't defect because of .Net taking to long, or DarkGDK tanking, or anything like that. I switched because I needed point clouds. DarkGDK won't do the point sprite shader thing (at least I had no luck but dbpro does it fine) and I needed straight up point rendering with fvf just having x,y,z, and color. DarkGDK doesn't render points like dx9 offers natively.

--Jason

Mahoney
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Posted: 30th Jun 2008 22:34
I salute you for learning straight DX. I want to do the same, eventually. I, for one, would love learning it. But, I'm sure I would suck at it until I learn more and become better at programming.
KISTech
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Posted: 30th Jun 2008 23:30
I need to learn a LOT more C++ before heading down that road.. Someday though... Someday...

I always look forward to your posts Jason, because I always come away having learned a little something more.

Mahoney
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Posted: 30th Jun 2008 23:38
Quote: "I always look forward to your posts Jason, because I always come away having learned a little something more."


Seconded.
Niels Henriksen
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Posted: 1st Jul 2008 11:21
Quote: "I always look forward to your posts Jason, because I always come away having learned a little something more."


3. and counting

Niels Henriksen
www.tales-of-the-realms.com
if Microsoft can sell software with bugs, so can I.
jezza
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Posted: 1st Jul 2008 15:32
Kindof going off topic, but is it possible to learn OpenGL straight as well? becuase Ive always prefered that to dx. And if so, how does it compare to the complexity of Dx straight/GDK?
jason p sage
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Posted: 1st Jul 2008 18:07
Possible Yes. Complexity? Can't tell ya - I haven't tried OpenGL - I'm pretty sure that poly winding is reversed in OpenGL and I think the coordinate system is different... like our x,y,z might be z,x,y or something... (lefthanded versus right handed catersian coords or whatever - thats easy enough to adapt to though....

Off Topic? Most definately LOL

And guys - thanx for the kind words above! Made my day - three times so far! You rock!

Niels Henriksen
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Posted: 2nd Jul 2008 23:38
jason - if you are cool (hey.. you are) then you make a lib for dx and opengl in one

Niels Henriksen
www.tales-of-the-realms.com
if Microsoft can sell software with bugs, so can I.
david w
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Posted: 3rd Jul 2008 00:01
LOL thats asking for an awful lot. You know the kinda work that would take. DX raw isnt really that hard. I never had much experience in C++ and none in DX when I made the jump. And I have to tell you. I always prototype up an idea in DBP before I attemt it in DX raw. Anyways, Im just saying its really not as hard as you would think. You just have to stay dedicated.
jason p sage
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Posted: 3rd Jul 2008 01:44
True David, and thanx Neils.. but that combo is already working with Errlicht. Also I'm so strapped for time I haven't been game coding Been coding in DX but not a game, and not a Game engine... though lots of the code might be usable as such, much of the work is in something not game related and proprietary I won't share... However - its forcing me to learn DX pretty decent and under the gun more or less - in other words - I'm crash coursing it like crazy.

thierry st malo
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Posted: 4th Jul 2008 21:01 Edited at: 4th Jul 2008 21:03
Out of despair, I looked once more at Irrlicht.NETCP ( the .NET wrapper to Irrlicht - I had looked once already, but as they seemed to have problems with correctly displaying DirectX objects I had decided to wait ).
It looks as if the young French genius ( As Marshal Foch used to say, "Please, no geniuses" ) has got bored with the thing or has married ( wives are apt to think that their husband should take some interest of some kind in them ) or whatever, anyway the thing is clearly dropped.
When will SOMEBODY understand that for Microsoft the future is the .NET architecture and NOTHING ELSE? Personally, I consider that DGDK is obsolete.
Cheers?
Thierry
jason p sage
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Posted: 4th Jul 2008 21:12
Quote: "When will SOMEBODY understand that for Microsoft the future is the .NET architecture and NOTHING ELSE?"


It will be their own undoing too. Real performance does not come from JIT and Script. Real Developers don't like needing to obfuciate "compiled" code because CLR is one of the most easily reverse engineered thing out there. Needing to download megs and megs of support libs to try and match up to the correct .net lib is more "yuckyness". Truly Truly OOP - well - its limited - you need to write interfaces when you start getting complex - (lame) -

And frankly - Microsoft's latest "Look Every one how awesome we Are" (Vista) has been a flop. Microsoft doesn't write the book on how to develop - frankly - I think they lost their edge - that edge is why we all use microsoft - more and more people are migrating to Linux - Mac - and clinging to XP - and their next OS will not likely impress every one either.

We are all entitled to our opinions - but if you don't like DarkGDK because you thinks its obsolete - then you may put it down when ever you like....

But comments like this:
Quote: "When will SOMEBODY understand that for Microsoft the future is the .NET architecture and NOTHING ELSE?"


Imply "we don't understand" - and that's hardly the case fan boy.

--Jason

Mahoney
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Posted: 4th Jul 2008 21:54
Windows 7 might really be a turn around. Maybe not, but it seems like it has a good shot.
Zuka
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Posted: 4th Jul 2008 22:17
Bill Gates is stepping down too.

Mahoney
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Posted: 4th Jul 2008 22:22
Yeah. It sucks. They just need to lessen their use of managed code.
KISTech
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Posted: 5th Jul 2008 00:30
They need to trim the fat out of their code. Ever since Windows 3.1 they've been adding more and more BLOAT to the code making it BIGGER and BIGGER and SLOWER and SLOWER.

I'm currently running a Pentium 4 2.8GHz with 1GB of RAM. I can't even imagine how fast Windows 3.1 or even Windows 95 would run on this thing, but then I'd have to go back to reformatting and reinstalling everything every six months because of the trashed registry, hard drive fragmentation, (that can't be defragged effectively) and whatever else it was that caused 95 and 98 to slow to a crawl after 6 months.

If they could pull their heads out of their butts long enough to know that we don't need "Pretty" we need "FUNCTIONAL" then maybe, just maybe their coding style would change.

Sadly, I don't see Microsoft having that realization anytime soon. Windows Vista is a disaster, and if I could return the laptop I bought that was designed for Vista I would in a heartbeat. Thankfully Toshiba is starting to listen to the complaints and they've started to provide some XP drivers for this model that actually work. They built it originally with Vista in mind and never wanted to have to put XP on it. It's been a pain in my back side since the day I turned it on.

DGDK is only as obsolete as it's supported version of DX becomes. DGDK.Net would likely introduce to much .Net overhead to give any kind of real performance boost, and adds another complex layer of support to deal with.

I'd love to see a version of DGDK go cross-platform and support both DirectX and OpenGL. Then we could write stuff for PC, Linux and Mac.

Mahoney
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Posted: 5th Jul 2008 00:32
Vista isn't crap. It's much more stable from the core. All it takes is a little work ( just like XP ) and it's just as fast. The improved memory management alone is worth it.
pirogoth
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Posted: 5th Jul 2008 04:57
Let me first say that I agree, The Game Creators needs to up their game a little. The DarkGDK and the DarkGDK.NET products need to be brought up to another level in both maintenance and capability. That said, I do think they are wonderful products, they simply need some work.

Now as for Vista being a flop. Every time someone says this it makes me giggle. I think it worth pointing out that the initial adoption rate of Windows XP was far slower than that of Vista's. It's been less than a year and Vista already has 10% market share, which is more than both OS X and Linux combined. I'd hardly call Vista a flop.

Now, onto the statement about .NET being the wave of the future. Excuse me while I don my tinfoil hat for a moment here. While I do think the .NET framework (and the accompanying Mono project) are indeed a step in the right direction, I think it is easily ten years two early to make any educated guesses as to whether the .NET framework will really be taking over. .NET is still very much in it's infancy, and we really have no way of knowing at this stage, where it's going to go.

-Piro
jason p sage
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Posted: 5th Jul 2008 05:42
Quote: "Now as for Vista being a flop"
Ok.. Giggle - Reasonable statement.

I call it a flop - because in the past - people upgraded typically to be able to do more - advantages - like? Better!?!

I work in an environment where I'm talking to various companies about their IT - and frankly - everyone is using Server2003 or 2000, and XP. Why? Going to Vista - Means inherent bloat - you need more horsepower to run it. 2 - There really isn't anything in Vista that makes any one I deal with say "Wow - I need that", 3: Microsoft's marketing and drop of their customer base's favorite Os - "Get Vista or Else" leaves a BAD taste in many companies mouth - especially those with lots of work stations, 4: Vista causes all kinds of software issues - sorry - but most business are on "legacy" softwzare - meaning it wasn't written yesterday - maybe written last year or two - or more ...whatever -

Everytime Microsoft comes out with a new technology - everything they just had you invest in is all of a sudden "legacy" and they don't build upon it...

This is a huge expense to companies world wide - and many are delaying the "inevitable" switch - or are scoping out alternatives.

The fact is - Microsoft has tons of market share - and we like a lot of the stuff that works from them no doubt... but man - the bloatware - the "required support files" for each iteration of .net - its insane.

Think about this for a minute - Assembly languge/machine code tells the cpu what to do - and a virtual machine - emulates it. We have faster PC's now - so that's a cool trick.

.Net - compiles to reverse engineerable (unless you take steps to scramble it) JIT code - (PCode) - then gets compiled to machine code at runtime... Each and everytime you run the software AFAIK - That's not very efficient.

Now - if our faster PC's can do Virtual Machines - and then those have to do "designed" inefficient junk like that - the slowdown is compounded: OS running .net - VM running .Net...

I really think .Net is like Autopilot in an airplane - and coding to the CPU is more like "manual" - more work perhaps - but - you can do alot more and the code can be made to run like lightning.

I like alot of microsoft products - however Vista, .Net, Win95, Millenium, Office 2007 - Are not on my list of software I thnk is worth very much.

Best thing microsoft released in my opinion is Office 2003, Server 2003, SQL Server 2000 & 2005 and the ForceFeed back joystick and the MS "Comfort" Laser mouse. LOL

Now - TGC - Above mentioned that DarkGDK could use a face lift a bit - but otherwsie great product? I agree. Coding in DarkGDK "obsolete" - Naaa... Making the next blockbuster? Well - I guess you could code dx10, or 10.1, or jump to OpenGL... Or do a Irrlicht or X-Plane approach - Where you write a game engine that can run on Mac, PC and Linux equally well - To be honest - that's where I want to be eventually - I've always been a open platform developer and really fond of languages like FreePascall (and C++ to a lesser extend) to be able to write the code once but compile it on any platform you want...

.Net - Isn't portable - C# - doesn't exist except in Microsoft land - So - I'm a hobby gamer - so I don't care all that much now - but - I'm always keeping an eye for the fastest most portable solutions out there.

That... Microsoft really isn't.

pirogoth
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Posted: 5th Jul 2008 06:40
I would like to mention, everything you've said about upgrading to vista and such, were also said about XP when it was released. Keeping in mind that this doesn't invalidate your complaints (as they are quite valid). I was working in IT at the time XP came out. I hated it for the very same reasons you dislike Vista. NOTHING worked. Rolling XP out across the campus was a nightmare. XP didn't particularly bring anything to the table that Win2k didn't already do, and do well. The higher ups essentially forced us to upgrade (because it was new and shiny). It's amazing I still have my hair, as I surely pulled enough of it out. =P

As for the ability to reverse engineer CIL code, I agree it's a rather serious problem and I don't think obfuscation is really the answer (though the only reasonable solution currently). However considering current and modern architectures, is the initial JIT process really that big of a performance hit? It occurs one time, at the launch of the application and rarely takes more than a second or two. In terms of runtime speed, you are seeing a very slight performance hit.

While the .NET framework is a little like autopilot (as it requires less from the programmer) it does have the rather large benefit of the programmer spending more time on his end goal, rather than implementing the little details. Don't get me wrong, I know some people enjoy writing all those little tiny details (hell, I'm one of them. It's why I love writing game engines.), but I surely see the benefit.

You talk a lot about bloat and that the user has to download a lot of runtime packages. While this is sometimes true, it's generally not the case. Dell, Gateway, HP and the vast majority of vendors have been shipping their computers with the .NET 2.0 framework installed by default (a lot of their in house tools were developed on .NET). They've been doing so for several years now (since at least about 2004). Vista comes with it by default as well.

Coming from a C or C++ background, you know as well as I do that this same situation is true for C/C++ developers. SDL, PhysX, OpenAL, etc. do not come with windows by default. We can hardly argue it's a bigger issue with .NET languages.

I'd also like to point out one last thing. You seem to be under the impression that .NET is a windows only technology. This is by no means true. Please take a look at the mono project. I can run most .NET applications on mono without so much as a recompile of my application. .NET projects that rely on cross platform libraries (Tao, Irrlicht.NET, Ogre and most of the base .NET libraries are included). And keep in mind, mono is not an emulator. It's a true .NET runtime that works on OS X, Windows, Linux as well as a good few other platforms. .NET applications are truly becoming a "Compile once, run anywhere" situation.

Now, all that said, if you don't like .NET, that's fine with me. your opinion is just as valid as my own. It really all comes down to what can the individual do. What makes the individual most productive? What fits the individuals workflow? Me, I use the right tool for the job. Often that's C/C++, but it's just as often Python, perl, C#, or a Lisp dialect.

----

As was said earlier in another thread, your posts are always amusing and far more often than not informative and to the point. It's a rather different feeling talking to someone who obviously has some experience with what he's talking about.

-Piro
jason p sage
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Posted: 5th Jul 2008 07:29
LOL - Good Stuff Piro - I knew people were trying to make .Net more portable and I wasn't aware its been accomplished - so that's news to me.

The various support libs - whether included or not - I'm just not a fan of - but what can you do right? Decent OS used to be a few disks, then a bunch, then a CD - now a DVD - Now maybe a couple double sided DVD's LOL... Ugh. (This is part of my bloat issue but not all)

You said it right when you said use the right tool for the job. At Work I'll code C# and Javascript, I'm adept at html, dhtml, "ajax" (yucky poo), vb6, sql, mysql, vbscript, etc. etc.

My biggest frustration with computers and people saying "this is old this is new so its better" etc. Is like was said about running 3.1 - take WordPerfect, or early versions of MSWord - and I guarantee they will scream! Faster, smaller, blazing... Now - Word is a monster - and I'd guess 90% of it people don't use... so why not have a lean version and then install the options? They have that to a point - but with a 15-20meg base that's kinda big for a typewriter with a spell and grammer check.

Now - It's nice reading your posts too because you have some definate hands on yourself.

That reverse engineerable stuff drives me nuts though about it - and it seems silly to me to compile each time you run an application - one simple rule in software development is to NOT process the same stuff over and over unless absolutely necessary - that drives me crazy.

My favorite "paradigm" for cross platform is write once compile everywhere (once) to true binary that is native to that platform.

Only one language does this well - FreePascal... C++ comes close for sure - but - having coded in both - in FreePascal - I can write stuff and MAYBE change 10 lines out of every 5000 for linux leeway or mac. That's pretty hot. (Like - drive letters aren't in linux - so I might have an #ifdef WIN etc....

Well - what you writing now for a game anyways?

And to touch on this threads topic I think TGC is trying to make a slamming release of the .Net version - like docs, demos, no silly "issues" and I would think that an update for DarkGDK shouldn't be long coming after that (I hope).

Frankly - there are only a few "tough" spots in DarkGDK - that if were ironed out - would make it seriously - the most "autopilot" of the game engines I'm aware of - (that actually require real programming) (That autopilot goes for both the C++ and .net version)

--Jason

Mahoney
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Posted: 5th Jul 2008 08:24
Quote: "Excuse me while I don my tinfoil hat for a moment here."


I found that to be genius.

Quote: "Everytime Microsoft comes out with a new technology - everything they just had you invest in is all of a sudden "legacy" and they don't build upon it..."


Though I agree with that, I think that Apple is so much worse at doing that. Did you buy an iPod? You'll know what I mean.

Quote: "I like alot of microsoft products - however Vista, .Net, Win95, Millenium, Office 2007 - Are not on my list of software I thnk is worth very much."


I agree with that for the most part. I do love the updates in Vista. After using it for a few months, I hate going back to XP. Also, though not worth the upgrade money, Office '07 is pretty awesome.

Quote: "Best thing microsoft released in my opinion is Office 2003"


'Twas amazing.

Quote: "I would like to mention, everything you've said about upgrading to vista and such, were also said about XP when it was released. Keeping in mind that this doesn't invalidate your complaints (as they are quite valid)."


I try to tell everyone that. I wasn't in the world of technology then, but even I know that that statement is true.

Quote: "You talk a lot about bloat and that the user has to download a lot of runtime packages. While this is sometimes true, it's generally not the case."


Never minded installing it. Especially since 3.5. They bundled all of them in one installer.

Quote: "Now, all that said, if you don't like .NET, that's fine with me. your opinion is just as valid as my own. It really all comes down to what can the individual do. What makes the individual most productive? What fits the individuals workflow? Me, I use the right tool for the job. Often that's C/C++, but it's just as often Python, perl, C#, or a Lisp dialect."


It's all opinion. No flame wars necessary.

Quote: "My biggest frustration with computers and people saying "this is old this is new so its better" etc. Is like was said about running 3.1 - take WordPerfect, or early versions of MSWord - and I guarantee they will scream! Faster, smaller, blazing... Now - Word is a monster - and I'd guess 90% of it people don't use... so why not have a lean version and then install the options? They have that to a point - but with a 15-20meg base that's kinda big for a typewriter with a spell and grammer check."


Most people don't do their research about new releases. I make sure to look up as much about programs as I can. Vista, for instance: I read up every bit of information I could find about memory management, security, DX 10, et cetera.

Quote: "the most "autopilot" of the game engines I'm aware of"


Yeah. A double-edged sword, I suppose.
Gervais
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Posted: 5th Jul 2008 15:39 Edited at: 5th Jul 2008 15:41
Jason
I will remind you that each time Microsoft bring something out every one complain about it before adopting it I am sure that in a few years from now companies and individual will say the next OS is not as good as vista and no one will want to leave vista just like XP now. For Companies remember they always by the cheeps PC they can find to run the current OS and wait until it is time to upgrade their fleet of PC. You should see the crap that we have at the office where I work none of them had minimum 3D capacity.

Now for the JIT compiler it only needs to compile the first time you install a program or change one of the dependency(DLL) after that it leave the product alone this was done to ensure that when you install it on a new pc there was no hardware incompatibility.

Now with the development of mono you could do C# in both windows and Linux and for the library well thing of all the nice add on you find on the market for C++ and add them all into one library it will be a lot bigger then the .Net framework. It is big but if you think of what’s in there well this is not so bad and it is really nice to work with and if you thing that it come with the new OS well no big deal and if you consider that the internet speed simply increase all the time well not much of a problem if you need the last one.
KISTech
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Posted: 5th Jul 2008 20:56
So Mono is a good thing. (the .Net port, not the disease..)

I've been around since the days of DOS 2.something.. The first hard drive I wanted to buy was only 10 MEG and it was the size of a toaster and cost $1,000. I've seen darn near all of it.

I'll agree I was skeptical of XP. I was a Windows 98 fan, and it was hard to let go.

None of my machines, nor any of my client's ran XP until they put out service pack 2. I suspect the same will be the case for Vista. It has potential, but to truly enjoy it on a 3-4 year old PC you have to turn off all the "bells and whistles", much like I had to do with XP.

Just 2 years ago I was an IT Department manager. I was able to save the company thousands by buying little tiny ASUS 1GHz mini motherboards, little cases that they just barely fit into, 512MB RAM, and an 80GB laptop hard drive. They ran cooler so they didn't warm up the office as much, used less electricity, and ran Windows XP SP2 and Office 2007 perfectly if you stripped out all of the unnecessary stuff from XP.

Vista has some "pretty" features but they are just more bloat. Vista wont go the way of Windows ME, I'm sure Microsoft learned their lesson there. The next generation of CPUs is beggining to come out so I'm sure Vista will pick up speed, and due to lack of support from Microsoft, XP will certainly die eventually. It's just the way of things.

Newer isn't necessarily better, it's just newer.

On topic: I'm not only curious to see what I can do with GDK.Net, but I'm also curious what the performance will be like, and what the license agreement will entail.

pirogoth
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Posted: 6th Jul 2008 01:17
Gervais: You're absolutely right, I just checked. .NET applications are JIT'd into machine code the first time you run the executable. This is good news.

Jason: My current project is a game framework actually (not an engine, but a framework). While I do have a few game ideas brewing (several in rather detailed design docs), I need to get the framework out of the way first.

-Piro
jason p sage
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Posted: 6th Jul 2008 02:17
Quote: "are JIT'd into machine code the first time"


That is good... no GREAT news. Seemed silly to JIT each run


CLR still slower than Native stuff though... but this is good from a business software perspective I think. (Intensive GFX Games have always demanded the most leanest and low level - smart coding etc to get the raw speed and get as much horsepower out a machine as possible - so for MANY software applications I think .Net might be fine - but to make a GTA, Flight Sim, HalfLife.. I think you need C++ or something like it)

I also think TONS of games can be written in .Net and made to perform just awesome - depends on the project, the coder - ..as said earlier - right tool for the job sort of thing - I'm GLAD TGC gave us a few to pick from.


pirogoth - Framework? Like my DarkGDK OOP lib or something?

SunDawg
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Posted: 6th Jul 2008 02:39 Edited at: 6th Jul 2008 02:42
Vista runs beautifully on my new desktop computer. It never crashes, it never slows, and it's on 100% of the time. (It works as both a gaming powerhouse, and as a printer and file server for the laptops I have)

As for the XP powered PC I had before this one, it would crash as often as once a week, which is unacceptable, considering the hardware should have been able to operate without fault for months on end. But I do recall that thinking it was an amazing step up from my Windows 98 PC before that one. To say that Vista isn't more stable or at least step in the right direction seems outrageous to me. Although, I believe it has to do with the hardware as much as the O/S. The XP PC had a P4, which was a better processor than the aged AMD from the 98 PC. The new Vista desktop has an Intel Viiv quad core, which is of course even more powerful.

I understand, however, that there is a performance curve with Vista. On hardware released during XP's prime time, and lower end hardware now, usually found in a laptop, Vista fails to perform as well as XP. On higher end hardware, found in mid-range to high-end new desktops, Vista vastly exceeds what could have been expected from XP on equivalent hardware. You take the good with the bad.

EDIT: I saw the PC wars on the end of page 1, and didn't notice it continued onto the next page, mea culpa.

Anyway, .NET technology is at this time inefficient and slow, adding another unnecessary dependency to the list of things your program needs to run, and wasting RAM. In the future it may be improved, but it takes a big stab at portability, which is unfortunate, to say the least.


My site, for various stuff that I make.
pirogoth
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Posted: 6th Jul 2008 02:39
While the CLR is slower, in actual test cases, you're looking at roughly a five percent loss in speed. Also keep in mind the bottleneck for games these days isn't the CPU, and hasn't been for years. It's the GPU.

Valve did a study a while ago (when XNA first came out) to see how the source engine would compare if written in C# vs C++. The result was that there was near no speed difference between the engines. I'll see if I can find the article, I seem to remember seeing it on gamasutra. Keep in mind they did not rewrite the source engine, it was merely a study, highly theoretical.

Jason: Actually yes, very similar in concept. It's written with .NET in mind, but yes. =P I essentially want to add all the little components you would need to write a game engine, so you could quickly write a game of any type with it.

-Piro
Mahoney
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Posted: 6th Jul 2008 02:53
Quote: "I essentially want to add all the little components you would need to write a game engine, so you could quickly write a game of any type with it."


Sound good to me.
thierry st malo
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Posted: 6th Jul 2008 16:13
When I sent my previous message, I was not saying or implying the the .NET architecture is the best way to go ahead. All I say, but I do say it, is that more and more that comes from Microsoft will obviously be based on it. So...
Having said that, .NET is obviously not that bad. I have more than 30 years of development experience, and I find VB Express 2008 to be a real gem - and free, too! That's why I am craving for DGDK.NET's next release.
As for DGDK.NET, I'm beginning to think that we are confronted with a classic design strategy error (I've also been an IT Manager): attempting to cram too much into a single release.
Cheers,
Thierry
jason p sage
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Posted: 6th Jul 2008 20:30
LOL - that was a great pos Probably is what's taking so long - they are small team also - dunno - If it was my day job - I'd give it full bore - its harder to stay focused when you have to do development AFTER work - and still have family time etc.

Scope Creep is a killer thats for sure if that's what's going on - otherwise - I think its fine that it's taking so long - I just think they should have kept the other .Net release active - and when the new one was about to be realeased - then they mention it .

Also you hit on another point. This is one community that I think would be very accepting of a modular release cycle - where the core comes out - then additional "tidbits" are made available upon completion - while the Official" release bundle would just grow in size - that way people could be moving forward - and in a way "working with TGC" while they make they're games - feedback would flow - people would say whats cool - what's hosed - and they could adjust efforts accordingly.

Far be it from me though to say how they should carry on - as I have no idea what's really going on - and they really do have a decent set of products - both their own and for resale.

As for .Net - I must say the mentioning (from you guys) about Halflife coders saying C# as fast as C++ (or neglible difference) and the portability stuff - all sounds very attractive. Though, knowing Microsoft, I can't wrap my head around the portability stuff - I mean - did they write the linux and max ports to .Net or is it some GNU thingy - that will always be playing catchup? Are the .Net core "calls" and Libs - the same? Does it allow One code base for both 32 and 64 bit stuff? Can it compile code on 32 bit that Int's and pointers are default 32 bit, but on 64bit switch to 64 default? (not breaking as much code when you switch from compiling 32 bit stuff to 64?)

In FreePascal - its types are explicit - and for an endian change - (because I do all the things the "teachers" say not to... but I get good performance from it.. like pointer math etc) so I just do Search-n-relace (or compile defines if I was thinking ahead) to switch the 32bit ints and pointers to 64bit if necessary)

Right now - there is a slight quandry - that the people NOW have the slower PC's and xp mostly - and do you code for them - or do you code for everyone (xp code mostly runs on Vista with a few config considerations to allows UAC allowed stuff - like maybe store things in the program files dir, but allow user to install "vista'ish" where binary in program files, while user settings etc - are off the current user folder tree etc. Some would argue do this anyway - I try to make it userdefined for stuff that is read/write - so its easy to port to linux etc. Where the user area is different etc)

So - meanwhile - I'm using dx9 and C++ - and dx10 doesn't seem all THAT different. There are more types, more functions, and I've heard there is no longer support for dx files - but I think I might have heard the contrary -also - but I'm not there yet - I'll cross these bridges when I get there - if I don't go OpenGL first. For now - I'm still a dx fan. However - seeing how smooth the OpenGL ports are for the Product XPLANE ([href] http://www.x-plane.com [/href] OpenGL has earned new respect from me.

I seriously DIGRESS - sorry...
--Jason

KISTech
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Posted: 6th Jul 2008 21:12
There have been games that supported both DX and OpenGL, and I could never get the DX mode to run fast enough to be playable. When I switched over to OpenGL it was like someone pushed the turbo button and the game finally came to life.

I've always had a good deal of respect for OpenGL. I think it's only been since DX9 that Microsoft finally caught up.

On Topic:

I'm happy with TGC and what they're doing. It's a great Windows only development environment. My first game has been written with DBPro, but GDK or GDK.Net will likely be where I go for version 2. If for no other reason than because of the gain in speed and flexibility.

Now if I could just find an artist willing to model a bunch of space ships for me for about $50-70 each..

jason p sage
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Posted: 6th Jul 2008 22:31
KisTech - You hit TurboSquid? How about the new TGC store? Or not what you're looking for?

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