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Hello,

If anybody has any experience with Nuclear Basic

https://www.nuclearglory.com/products.php

and XORS3D

http://www.xors3d.com/

Please share experience how they perform as when compared with Dark Basic pro and Dark GDK.

Thanks,

Hi.

Nuclear Basic produces better assembly code. (This is evident in the performance document you can find with the trial version.)

Xors3D is not related to the language. However, the Nuclear Fusion engine (which powers Nuclear Basic) is perfectly capable and rather optimized.

If you have any questions about Nuclear Basic, I recommend using their forums to find answers. I'd be happy to assist you there.

These forums are mostly for Dark Basic Pro discussion, though. I can't speak for any virtues of DBPro except that its language is a bit more syntactically pleasing. The performance is (proven to be) not. Here's a rant I made on it.

That said, evaluate each and determine which is right for you.

Cheers,
Aaron

DISCLAIMER: I had an affiliation with Nuclear Glory. Everything I stated is true and accurate. No engine is perfect.

Hello Aaron,

Thank you for dropping by. How powerful is Nuclear Fusion as compared to Dark GDK 1.0 and the new Dark GDK 2.0 ?

There is no evaluation version of Nuclear Fusion available.

Thanks,

It's probably best to ask that on their forums. The community there can explain the pros and cons of the product(s) there.

Nuclear Fusion, compared to Dark GDK, has a number of benefits.
* Entities have a uniform command-set. (Instead of "MoveCamera," and "MoveLight," and "MoveObject," etc., there's just "MoveEntity.")
* Entities can have child entities, which inherit transformations (position, rotation, scale) of their parent entities. And any entity can be attached to any other entity. So a point-light can be attached to a mesh entity representing a torch so that the light always moves with the torch.
* Physics is built-in to Nuclear Fusion and runs on its own thread, for great efficiency. The implementation uses Bullet.
* Shaders are easy to load and support the full NVIDIA SAS specification. Meaning, pretty much everything is automated.
* You can load X, B3D, and "N3D" models. Support for other models is in the works.
* With NF you can choose between Direct3D 9 and Direct3D 11.
* NF can run on Windows 98.
* If Direct3D 9 isn't installed on the end-users system (or D3D11) you can control that error in your app. (You call MakeWindowDX() directly, then edit it.)
* NF takes care of all of your timing for you, with its "Do3DTweening" concept. This lets the engine handle the timing efficiently. Therefore, all of your entities will move, and turn, at the same speed regardless of the actual frame rate you get.
* NF can be used with Dev-C++, Code::Blocks, MSVC++, Borland C++, Open Watcom, and other compilers/IDEs.
* NF has built-in Windows GUI commands.
* NF has built-in support for INI and XML parsing.
* NF is more efficient than Dark GDK. (You'll get higher frame rates.)
* NF has the concept of multiple worlds, which Dark GDK does not have (built-in that is, AFAIK).
* An advanced lighting system is coming to NF.
* A ton of built-in shaders are provided with NF.
* Development is still very actively being done. (See the bug boards. It's getting a whole host of fixes, constantly.)

Keep in mind that NB is just a language that NF powers. There should be a trial up for NB (haven't checked). If not, there are samples. And if you're not sure how to do something, the community there is willing to help.

That said, DarkGDK has a larger user base, and probably a bunch of samples. The docs for DGDK are probably a bit more complete than NF's as well. Though, it's encouraged that you ask if you don't know how to do something. Then, a sample can be provided, the commands and relationships can be explained, etc. (NF's creator actively communicates with the community.)

Cheers,
Aaron

I think this feature is available too in Dark GDK and Dark Basic Pro too by using the "limbs" feature.



Yes, presence of physics in the core is a plus point but the bullet wrapper they have built has too less feature set right now.
NO Joints, Cloth, Particles, Vehicles, Ragdolls etc.



I wish there was support for Direct3D 10 also. Tessellation which is a feature of Nuclear Basic and Nuclear Fusion - works also on DirectX 10 too. Older cards like mine - GEFORCE 9400GT has support upto DirectX 10.



This can also be accomplished too in Dark GDK and Dark Basic Pro using the sync function which ties the frame rate at the desirable
constant rate across different hardwares.



I am not too sure about this. But for Nuclear Basic I am getting the same frame rate as Dark Basic Pro. I can share the code I used for testing - if you want.



But they are external windows GUI. There is no in game GUI system to take advantage of.


This is a good feature available for Nuclear Basic as compared to Dark Basic Pro. But while using Dark GDK 1.0 or 2.0 one can use any freely available XML parser library.



I have gone through the reference page shown by you and found the example screen shots to be very attractive. However there is no manual or description of how to implement such a beautiful scene.
Just buying Nuclear Basic and Nuclear Fusion won't help if there is no manual or tutorial about how to implement such a beautiful scene - specially for a newcomer.

I will like to know from you one of the most important aspects of an engine - the availability of different types of culling system native to the engine - which I think you have skipped over in your post. To my knowledge Dark Basic Pro and Dark GDK 1.0 / 2.0 only have frustum or viewport culling and back face culling available natively. For occlusion culling one will have to use Dark Occlusion plugin.
So what kind of culling techniques are natively available in Nuclear Basic and Nuclear Fusion ?

Another concern is the total absence of an AI helper library like Dark AI for easy path-finding, entity behavior etc. which surely makes the life of a new comer easy. This feature is totally absent
in Nuclear Basic and Nuclear Fusion set of products.

Hello. I'm posting this from my phone, so it won't be the best quality.

Anyway, limbs are not a substitute for a proper hierarchy system, like NF has. The limb system is controlled with separate commands and is much less powerful. As was explained on the forum there, the culling system benefits from this as well. (Occlusion culling is built-in, btw.)

As for physics, more support is coming and the particle system is available in source form.

Tessellation is a SM5-level feature. D3D10 has no support for it. D3D11 works on D3D9-level hardware with a reduced feature set (no tessellation, or compute/geometry shaders, etc). Same with D3D10-level hardware (though, geometry shaders and sometimes compute shaders are available there). To rephrase, supporting the D3D10 API would be fairly pointless considering D3D11 offers the same features and hardware support as 10, plus some.

If you're interested in AI, there are free libraries available. I'm sure a solution will come along soon. Additionally, I think it should be possible to get DarkAI working with NF. Not sure how easy that'd be; I don't use DarkAI.

As for no game GUI, that's right. The same could be said for DBPro though, so I'm not sure why that's an issue. Neither DBPro nor DGDK have a native WinGUI system. If you decide you need a level editor or some utility, you have the functionality to make one pretty quickly. It's easy to use as well. If you're looking to make a game-based GUI, that's pretty simple too.

Timing: I'm talking about all objects in your world moving at the same speed regardless of frame rate. Turning on vsync keeps your game locked at a maximum frame rate, but if the frame rate dips, objects will no longer move at the same speed without smooth timing. Additionally, if the user's monitor refresh rate is 75Hz, but yours is 60Hz, the objects will appear to move faster for the user than for you. To fix this, you need smooth timing. With NF and NB this is something you don't have to worry about. This is much different than using 'sync rate'. Even DBPro developer Lee Bamber acknowledges the necessity of smooth timing over sync rate. (iirc, he said that in a "Lee's Tip of the Month" section in one of the newsletters.)

If you have any questions regarding this post, please ask on the NG forum, as you've been doing. I only answered here because you had some questions that were not asked over there.

Cheers,
Aaron

I've been with DBPro for years and never heard of NB/NF before. So obviously out of curiosity I checked it out. Seems fairly nifty engine. My main concern with DBP and GDK is lack of support and further development, in a few more years (presumably along with the new generation of game consoles) DX9 will become an ancient dinosaur like the DX7 (BB) did. So naturally I wan't to work with something that can keep me going beyond that. Currently am putting all my expectations into DarkGDK 2.0 since the person who made it has commit access to DBPro source code and promised to tackle any outstanding bugs and introduce new functionality in the future. For now though that's all on paper.

Speaking of NF is there a possibility to control it using PureBasic? I mean has there been any attempts to link it statically or dynamically? Thanks.

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