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AppGameKit Classic Chat / AGK for Pascal 1076 is out and adds Android support!

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Neslib
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Posted: 4th Jul 2012 17:34
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AGK for Pascal is updated to version 1076 of AppGameKit, but more importantly, it adds Android support.

Check out the included help file or the Getting Started for Android page for more information.

As before, you can still create single-source applications that run on Windows, OS X, iOS and now Android. You just need an additional Lazarus project file to compile for Android. Almost all 70+ sample applications have corresponding Android projects now. I tested them all on my Android tablet.

Please note that Android development is currently only supported on the Windows platform. Although is should be possible to modify the build process to work on OS X or Linux, I haven't looked into this. Also, due to current limitations of the Free Pascal Cross Compiler, you can only build ARM v6 binaries for now. But I expect that the cross compiler will add support for ARM v7 in the not-too-distant future so we can take advantage of the hardware FPU and make AppGameKit apps run faster on modern devices. (FPC already supports ARM v7 for iOS).

Big thanks to Jim Hawkins for reviewing the build process and testing. It was a big help in ironing out some issues you may run into when setting up your environment. And also, it's reassuring to know that the AppGameKit for Pascal not only works on my Android tablet but on his too.

But this is still the first version to support Android. So I cannot guarantee that you won't run into any issues compiling or running Android apps. If you do, please post to this thread and I will take a look at it.

Enjoy!
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JimHawkins
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Posted: 4th Jul 2012 23:54
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Congratulations are due to Erik. This is a fantastic step forward for AppGameKit development.

-- Jim
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MikeS
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Posted: 5th Jul 2012 02:19
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Great work! I'm going to sticky this post for the time being.



A book? I hate book. Book is stupid.
(Formerly Yellow)
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kamac
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Posted: 5th Jul 2012 11:22
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This is pretty much amazing

Good work, keep it up!

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Brother
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Posted: 5th Jul 2012 18:08
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Hi,

Thank you a lot Neslib, I am a fan of Pascal programming
and a fan of Android so, it' paradise !!!

Even if it's raining in France, it's a nice day...

I am not english so xcuse my syntax, grammary or anything else wich could occure some ununderstanding
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The Daddy
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Posted: 5th Jul 2012 21:09
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Neslib

What can I say, stand up tall and be counted! Really fantastic work!

Very well done!

Constantly seeking!
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JimHawkins
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Posted: 6th Jul 2012 13:58
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I've uploaded a small demo of using TStringLists within an AppGameKit app, here:

http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=198381&b=41

So I can confirm that stringlists and datestamps (including Now() ) work fine

-- Jim
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Neslib
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Posted: 6th Jul 2012 17:19
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That's a great example of mixing the Delphi/Free Pascal RTL with AGK.

I think you should be able to use most RTL units (like Classes, SysUtils, Math, StrUtils, DateUtils etc.) in AGK. The Free Pascal team went to great efforts to make these cross-platform.
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Brother
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Posted: 7th Jul 2012 06:36
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So thanks to Free Pascal Team also.


I am not english so xcuse my syntax, grammary or anything else wich could occure some ununderstanding
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nz0
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Posted: 19th Jul 2012 22:25
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Can I use Delphi 5 with this?

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Neslib
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Posted: 19th Jul 2012 22:44
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Quote: "Can I use Delphi 5 with this?"


No, you need Delphi 2010 or later. Or you can use the free FreePascal with Lazarus.
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nz0
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Posted: 24th Jul 2012 02:32
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I have lost patience with tier 1 and it's limitations.

As I'm happy with Delphi (pascal) should I persue using this pascal wrapper or go for the tier 2 C++ method (no previous knowledge of C++)

Would I be able to use 3rd party object code for instance, such as FMOD? I'll be very happy to assist in the improvement of this wrapper if it's going to be supported.

cheers

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Neslib
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Posted: 24th Jul 2012 03:48
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If you know Delphi but don't know C++, then I would definitely go for the Pascal version. Everything the C++ version can do, the Pascal version can do too. And you may find the Pascal class library easier to work with than the C(++) library. Although I am probably a bit biased in that area as the author of the Pascal wrapper

You will be able to use 3rd party libraries as long as there are Pascal wrappers for them. I know there are Pascal wrappers for FMOD for example, but I don't know if they work on all supported platforms (Windows, OS X, iOS and Android).
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JimHawkins
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Posted: 24th Jul 2012 12:23
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FMOD runs on all platforms, but it's very expensive for anything that is charged for:

http://www.fmod.org/fmod-sales.html

Same applies to BASS:

http://www.un4seen.com/

If you know Delphi, AppGameKit for Pascal is the way to go. However, it's better to use Lazarus with Free Pascal for Android platforms because Delphi doesn't yet have ARM output. But having said that, Free Pascal is almost totally Delphi compatible, so you can develop using Delphi for Windows and then simply import your code into a Lazarus project.

-- Jim
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bjadams
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Posted: 24th Jul 2012 14:14
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Just a word of warning. FMOD works perfectly on iOS and Windows with AppGameKit T2. I could not get it to work on Android though.

It's perfect if you do no-commercial projects, like I do, as it's free to use.
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JimHawkins
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Posted: 24th Jul 2012 20:00
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I think you have to be careful with FMOD. It may be that if you have income from adverts you fall foul of the licensing agreement - "directly or indirectly" is the wording.

What, exactly, is it that people want to do that you can't do with the current AppGameKit audio command set?

-- Jim
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bjadams
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Posted: 24th Jul 2012 22:01
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Putting adverts would make your app a commercial one, as you would have some kind of income, so you would have to pay the licence.

If your app is free, then you can use Fmod for free.

Fmod is the best sound solution on the market. It offers all imaginable sound options, and it plays seamless mp3s - agk audio does not do that.
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JimHawkins
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Posted: 24th Jul 2012 23:20
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If you want to pay me $15,000 I'll work on it! But, if you want it to play on Android, obviously, you'll have to fork out a bit more.

Considering that most of what they do is fairly trivial, I think they are taking the proverbial.

Still - it's a good challenge, right in my area. Watch this space!

-- Jim
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nz0
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Posted: 25th Jul 2012 00:28
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I'm happy to use FMOD for free stuff - I did read the licensing (and have used FMOD before for free stuff) so no problem there.

@Jim: AppGameKit has plenty of issues for me regarding audio, e.g. I can't change sfx volume while playing (or apply any FX at all), lag on MP3 trigger / looping, etc. etc.

My game has synchronised audio (music cues) which don't work properly, regardless of all combinations of music/sfx I've tried.

Some (maybe even all) of the issues I've encountered, I've been able to work around, but there's always another brick wall.

FMOD not working on android though rules it out again for me.

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bjadams
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Posted: 25th Jul 2012 15:33
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It's not that it does not work, FMOD works perfectly on Android.
It's just that i could not make it work within the AppGameKit framework & templates.
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blueFire
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1. When building for android does the Pascal version offer "one click" building or do I have to go through a long process to build the end program like AppGameKit Tier 1?

2. What about the other platforms? Are there plans to make the pascal version compatible with them as well?

Jason
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Neslib
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Posted: 29th Jul 2012 03:42
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1. The initial setup of an Android project takes a couple of steps. But once that is done, the build process uses "2 clicks": 1. Compile with Lazarus/FreePascal, and 2. Debug/run with Eclipse. See the Getting started for Android page for more information.

2. AGKPas also supports Windows, OS X and iOS.
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blueFire
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Posted: 30th Jul 2012 00:34
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Are there plans to expand AGKPas to be able to create programs for the Bada, MeeGo and BlackBerry platforms?

Jason
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JimHawkins
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Posted: 30th Jul 2012 01:31
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That's up to Erik, obviously.

It depends how much effort is needed to produce templates for the platforms - most of those named appear to be failing or failed - but anybody can modify the templates as they wish.

I think the highest priority at the moment is some good project management stuff, which I'm working on. Currently, AGKP is the fastest route to one or two-click production, and it'll soon be even faster!

-- Jim
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Neslib
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Posted: 30th Jul 2012 02:25
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I currently have no intention to support Bada, MeeGo an BlackBerry anytime soon. IMHO, these platforms will become obsolete in the not-too-distant future.

But more importantly, I don't have the resources (both in time and hardware) to work on these platforms. I would rather spent my time on making support for the current platforms as good as possible.

But AGKPas is open source, so you can always add your own support for Bada, MeeGo and BlackBerry if you want (provided that FreePascal supports these architectures).
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bjadams
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Posted: 30th Jul 2012 15:02
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AGK doesn't even have proper Blackberry support, so I doubt that Neslib can do miracles.

I think we should give up to see the proper 1076 AppGameKit Playbook support ever released.

Luckily Blackberry have an HTML5 sdk, so I'm going to try to rebuild my AppGameKit project in HTML5 now.
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JimHawkins
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Posted: 12th Aug 2012 12:43
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I've being doing some experiments with multi-threading, which works fine on Windows. However, the FPC arm compiler appears not to have an implementation of cthreads - or if it has, nether I nor Lazarus can find it!

I'll keep monitoring this - it would ideal for things like complex games evaluation trees. Even with a very processor-intensive thread the frame-rate remained rock solid.

-- Jim
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Ancient Lady
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If you want the AppGameKit Pascal to keep its multi-platform usability, you need to be very careful about the extras you use.

If the target platforms don't have it in their setup, you probably shouldn't include it in the Windows version.

Having found an issue for the Android, AppGameKit, Pascal and cthreads, have you tried to see if there is a similar one for the iOS/Mac setup?

Cheers,
Ancient Lady
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JimHawkins
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Multi-threading is okay on all platforms in general. This is a compiler issue. Just found an update patch for the FPC ARM compiler which can build the cthreads library in for arm-linux.

I'm just doing some technology tests, because I think this base information is important. I'm sure that's what you mean by "careful." I'm not sticking this into game code - or recommending that anybody else does - until we have proof of technology.

Of course, multi-threading may actually be quite slow on single-core processors because of the context switching overhead, but it still makes a lot of sense to be able to perform complex calculations outside the simple iteration loop. For example, trying to evaluate a deep minimax tree in Go or Chess would be a hopeless nightmare, whereas a sub-thread can mean that can show at least a "thinking..." animation that doesn't freeze.

Another good use would be background loading. It's a common complaint in the forum that loading big files in AppGameKit is very slow, so being able to do this whilst maintaining the interface would be advantageous.

-- Jim
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Ancient Lady
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Totally agree.

I also suspect that multi-threading might be an issue for many mobile devices (and older PCs that are single processors).

I work very hard to keep my image file size as small as possible without jeopardizing the display quality. It's a challenge sometimes. My WIP game is now fully converted to Tier 2 (yes, one day I will work on something in Tier 3) and I've been enjoying adding capability and finishing the details in a language that gives me so much more control (and lists and classes and standard strings that do garbage collection properly).

Cheers,
Ancient Lady
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JimHawkins
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Posted: 13th Aug 2012 11:05
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One example is that I have a 210,000 line dictionary text file. Using standard AppGameKit calls this can take a very long time to load on an Android tablet. Sticking this in a separate thread would at least allow a progress bar to animate. The same might apply to a big world map.

I'm also looking at a simple cooperative multitasking class which loads x% of the data and yields - in other words, in the game loop we call it to get more data if there is any, and it signals when that operation is finished. With a simple scripting list of assets it should then be possible to maintain the frame rate whilst loading large files. This could also work in Tier 1 with a bit of fiddling.

-- Jim
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Neslib
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Multi-threading should be possible on all platforms with Free Pascal. However, there currently is an open issue in Free Pascal with threading on the Android platform. I hope that will be fixed in a next update of the compiler.

I agree that multi-threading can be beneficial even on single core CPUs. Depending on the platform, the context switching overhead is minimal. I have been doing multi-threaded programming for years and noticed that (at least on Windows) creating extra worker threads for specific tasks can really boost performance, even when running 20 threads on a single core.
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JimHawkins
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Posted: 14th Aug 2012 00:20 Edited at: 14th Aug 2012 00:22
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Yes - the animation engine which I wrote before 2000 AD on Windows 98 used a worker thread to update all the back-buffer stuff (or to be strictly accurate, the triple-buffered system) and only needed to synchronize with the main thread at "flip" time. It was fast even on single-core early Pentiums - and guess what? It still runs perfectly on a quad-core on x64 W7!

Another example of thread use would be something like a dungeon game, where you might have hundreds of NPCs, some of them quite smart. Updating them in a tight display loop would be a stuttering nightmare.

Here is a complete but minimal main unit that reads a text file of potentially vast size in a thread. Comments later:



This creates a reader thread which is inherited from the TThread class in a suspended state and passes some values into it before letting it run. When it runs it attempts to read a text file, and changes status accordingly.

I've made a string called globalreadpath (actually only global for this unit and not outside it, so let's call it semi-global). The reason for this is that AppGameKit messes about with directories as soon as it's activated, so here we get the "real" current directory before we launch any AppGameKit stuff. If we don't do this, our load will fail, because AppGameKit will switch the current directory to the write path, which will NOT contain our file unless we go through the self-defeating process of reading it first and writing it back.

There is no locking mechanism here. It's really not necessary unless your main process needs to write a value which is shared. This is the cause of a common misconception and produces "thread terror." Threads can be - as here - quite simple. However, if you want multiple threads to change memory locations then you must use a lock mechanism, and even that's not as scary as it sounds.

Looking forward to Erik producing an elegant TAGKThread class before too long!

-- Jim
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bitJericho
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So I wanna try my hand at pascal. But it looks like the snapshots don't have quite the right version we need. Should I download the lazarus 1.1 version with fpc, or does anyone have lazarus 0.931 + fpc 2.6.1 archive?

darkBIT TGC Torrent Tracker / File Server - AGK Chat: #agk : irc.devhat.net
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Neslib
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Posted: 22nd Aug 2012 21:46
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For Windows/Mac you need FPC 2.5.1 minimum with Lazarus 0.9.30 minimum. Those are available as stable builds here:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/lazarus/files/

For Android, you need FPC 2.6.1 or later with Lazarus 0.9.31 or later. There are no official stable builds for this version yet, but you can download a snapshot here:

http://freepascal.dfmk.hu/test/lazarus/

Choose the "Lazarus + fpc 2.6.1" (win32) archive (the file Lazarus-1.1-38290-fpc-2.6.1-20120821-win32.exe at the time of this writing).
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bitJericho
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got it. Thanks a bunch.

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The Daddy
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Having finally managed to get a Tier 1 app working on my Nexus...(thanks Lady!) I thought I would try Lazarus for android and it worked a dream.

Thanks Neslib....fantastic work!

Much appreciated.

Constantly seeking!
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The Daddy
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Gutted, I am in Holland and leave on Saturday for the UK.....and what's on in the Netherlands? Only the Lazarus team hosting a Laz Conference.....gutted I will miss it, would have been fun with the Dutch guys I shink yesh.

Constantly seeking!
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Neslib
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As a Dutch guy I would agree that you would have fun at the conference
Too bad I live in the US now, so I cannot go either...
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The Daddy
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Hey Neslib,

This is my very poor Dutch.....

Mein vrouw is en Nederlander. Dat is leuk!

What took you to the states?

Constantly seeking!
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Neslib
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Quote: "Mein vrouw is en Nederlander"


I'm sorry to hear that
Just kidding; I'd like to meet her

My job took me to the states. But the weather and the people are great too in San Diego.
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gonzales
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Hi,

I downloaded the "AGK for Parcal" and I liked it a lot.
Very good job (and professional)
Congratulations Neslib.

I use Delphi XE3
Is there a function for setting the screen in fullscreen mode?

I use windows now but .. who knows later.
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gonzales
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The more i study "AGK for Parcal" the more i like
neslib aproach.

thanks again Erik.!!

PS:I agree with the others ..
we NEED Pascal exclusive thread.

PS2:Greetings from "bleeding" Greece!!
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Neslib
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Posted: 18th Oct 2012 17:22
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The AppGameKit engine itself does not support setting/switching fullscreen mode, so AppGameKit for Pascal doesn't either.

The AppGameKit Player for Windows can optionally run in fullscreen mode, but only using the current screen resolution (you are not able to set the fullscreen resolution). However, this functionality is part of the player, and not of the engine.

(And on mobile devices, everything is fullscreen)
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JimHawkins
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Posted: 18th Oct 2012 19:23
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It's not too hard to create a pseudo-fullscreen mode on Windows, by adjusting the initial window creation modes. Normally, full screen is handled by DirectX's close lock to the GPU, but it isn't hard to make the window borderless and at the same resolution as the display.

Example here:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1400654/how-do-i-put-my-opengl-app-into-fullscreen-mode

Alternatively, on Windows, it's easy to actually change the display resolution - but you have to be careful to put it back to default at the end of program run or when an exception occurs. All of this is handled transparently by DirectX.

So - a few overrides to the initial window creation could give you effectively full screen on Windows. Then you have to think about the granularity of your display in AppGameKit - wider canvas and fine detail or blocky. But that's always an issue, isn't it?

I'll have a play when I get back home from Greece tomorrow.

How to achieve the same effect on the other platforms I have no idea!

-- Jim DO IT FASTER, EASIER AND BETTER WITH AppGameKit FOR PASCAL
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gonzales
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Posted: 18th Oct 2012 23:27
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Thanks guys ..

@JimHawkins
You are right!!

I solve the Fullscreen problem by altering
the createwindow() GWL_STYLE
but ..
to fill the whole screen .. it's another story.

i am playing with agk_SetDisplayAspect(16.0/9.0) but
a cannot figure out how it works (yet)
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gonzales
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Hi, there ..
Ya!! , Ya!! It's me again.

Can someone give me a clue how to..
draw partial of a sprite
or how to draw "continually" a partial from an image.
or any other solution to accomplice the effect of the
"attached file".

I need to have 4 images
and create 2 sprites ( maybe ) that scroll those images
.. see the demo example.

PS: I create the demo using windows.bitblt function
copying continually patially fom images and draw it
to the "sprite".

TIA
gonzales

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JimHawkins
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Posted: 19th Oct 2012 19:19
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@gonzales - thanks for telling me I'm right. It doesn't happen often!

Just got back from a temperature of 25 degrees on Corfu to 12 in the UK, which is a bit depressing.

I think the key is to ask the question "How platform independent do we want to be?" As I think I said earlier, you can step outside the AppGameKit restrictions quite easily on Windows by getting all the info you need BEFORE AppGameKit starts up, and then fooling AppGameKit and OpenGL into thinking your way, but this isn't go to work on Android or iOS, unfortunately. There are probably equivalents on these platforms which could be built into the Pascal system by people expert on those platforms.

For Windows only, I would infinitely prefer a DX-based system to an OGL solution. But for wider use, I'd want to employ the stuff that's there in AGK.

To go into pseudo-full-screen on Windows you need to grab the current display resolution and THEN set up the actual window. You will dictate a window of display-width by display-height at origin zero/zero, border-less, and then decide how internally AppGameKit will apply scaling.

Forgive me if that's not clear. I've been travelling for nearly 12 hours.

-- Jim DO IT FASTER, EASIER AND BETTER WITH AppGameKit FOR PASCAL
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gonzales
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I just noticed that my attached file is missing.
I am quite sure that i uload it but ..
neveremind i upload again in zippyshare.
you can download it from here:

http://www63.zippyshare.com/v/39209521/file.html

few words about me ..
I have created a Delphi Game with DelphiX few years ago
and now i want to improve it by adding some particles.

Few days ago i discover AppGameKit for PASCAL and i decide to
download it and give it a try.

I am not an Advanced user in game programming and as you
allready know, we ( Pascal programers ) don't have a lot
of options with game frameworks.

It's quite obvious to me that i can get benefit for this
amazing library.

Neslib give a opportunity with "AGK for Pascal" and his
amazing sceen approach. ( Thanks again NesLib )

So i start some tests how to implement my functions to AGK
and ( why not ) how easy is to port it to another platform
using Delphi.

I start (for now) searching ..
.How to manage Fullscreen ( allready done !)
.how to scroll a sprite ( like slotMachine Reels )
.and the later how to create a adroid game from scratch.

And because AppGameKit documentation not helps enought users like me
the help from other users are very important.

I do not want to become intrusive but sometimes a simple "Yes" in your response is enough to erase my doubts about whether I walk in to the right Direction.

TIA
gonzales

@JimHawkins.
I hope you have a good time in my country !!.
Maybe next summer to accommodate you ( AND your family ) in my
personal home in Halkidiki.
( Lets say some OPaaaa!!! )
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JimHawkins
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Joined: 26th Jul 2009
Location: Hull - UK
Posted: 20th Oct 2012 09:46
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Yassu Gonzales!

Have you looked at the examples carefully? Scrolling etc is pretty much covered there.

Have you installed the Android NDK etc, following Erik's very clear instructions?

To start an Android game from scratch, copy the templates and the rest into a new folder, and open the template in Lazarus, then save with a new name. Edit the .pas file to start creating, and also edit the postbuild.bat file to copy media to the appropriate folder.

As you said earlier, the AGKScene system is fantastic. I'm starting off with a Menu scene from which other scenes can be easily launched. This avoids lots of case statements or "where am I?" code that gets discussed here a lot.

There is quite a big Pascal game development community. For example:

http://www.pascalgamedevelopment.com/content.php

One thing I will be doing before Christmas is adding Windows-only microphone support in a way that can be converted to AppGameKit code IF TGC actually add microphone support. This is vital for my language-learning exercises.

Yammas!

-- Jim DO IT FASTER, EASIER AND BETTER WITH AppGameKit FOR PASCAL
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