Sorry your browser is not supported!

You are using an outdated browser that does not support modern web technologies, in order to use this site please update to a new browser.

Browsers supported include Chrome, FireFox, Safari, Opera, Internet Explorer 10+ or Microsoft Edge.

DarkBASIC Professional Discussion / To all the moaners out there! >Continued

Author
Message
AndyUK
23
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 2nd Apr 2003
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 6th Apr 2003 05:27 Edited at: 6th Apr 2003 05:28
Architect, i dont doubt your programs are running slower and i also dont doubt im an ameture.. just give it time m8.. like they released patch 4, they will release patch 4.x.. and after seeing all the moaning going on here, im sure they will fix most of the stuff. They cant just click thier fingers and iron out all the fixes a day after they are discovered.. u think u say jump and they will jump? think again.. Blimey, if you hate it so much, i have an original copy of blitz3d boxed new here, you can have it for £30..

note: i had to start a new topic coz the old one wouldnt let me post anymore.

| P4 2.4(533) | 512DDR(333) | GF4Ti4200 64MB | WinXP Home Sp1 | Cup of CoffeE |
Sledge
23
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 3rd Dec 2002
Location:
Posted: 6th Apr 2003 07:10 Edited at: 6th Apr 2003 07:31
This is what ZooT wrote in the previous, intellectually spiked missive to which he refers...

Quote: "What you need to understand is that this is a new development tool and it needs time to mature, no one said you have 3 months to write a fully fledge high quality game or your sacked and you'll loose your house!"


Now, to all the illiterates out there, what "Professional" means is that you do something for a living. So, if you release a product and have the audacity call it, oooooh say, Dark BASIC Professional, what you're implying is that the product is fit for use in professional circumstances (ie able to facilitate high quality games generation, in this case) where milestones very much apply. You can expect customers, therefore, who have the base expectation that your product at least kinda works.

Now, maybe if they'd called it Dark BASIC Not-Quite-Yet, or Dark BASIC Oops-Where's-My-Registry-Gone? or, hell, just plain ol' Dark BASIC Unprofessional, people wouldn't be quite so pissy, eh ZooT? And your blatant disregard for what words actually really definitely mean wouldn't seem quite so gauling as, months and months after its initial release, we continue to wait for this "professional" tool to become significantly more reliable than your dictionary. Did you notice... "continue to wait"? The people having problems have, nevertheless, stuck with DBPro -- you might want to allow them a degree of frankness for that, while taking note of what they're moaning about and using that information to avoid the pitfalls yourself. And don't forget to thank them afterwards.

But I dunno -- didn't the irony of starting not one, but two threads specifically to moan about moaners (who are typically more experienced than yourself with the language, let's not forget) hit you at any point there?

AndyUK
23
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 2nd Apr 2003
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 6th Apr 2003 15:18
someone please delete these topics!!!! im fed up with it!

| P4 2.4(533) | 512DDR(333) | GF4Ti4200 64MB | WinXP Home Sp1 | Cup of CoffeE |
AndyUK
23
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 2nd Apr 2003
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 6th Apr 2003 15:48
Sledge.. Microsoft Windows XP "Professional" had bugs left right and center on release and is still being updated on a day to day basis. Service pack 1 for XP "Pro" fixed a massive 300 majour bugs.. so please dont slate this product.

| P4 2.4(533) | 512DDR(333) | GF4Ti4200 64MB | WinXP Home Sp1 | Cup of CoffeE |
Rob K
Retired Moderator
23
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 10th Sep 2002
Location: Surrey, United Kingdom
Posted: 6th Apr 2003 17:24
The "Professional" tag-line is marketing, something which DBS do very well.

As is clearly evident, DBS lie or mislead at every twist and turn, you have to be prepared for that if you want to use their products.

If DBS style of customer / marketing management annoys you too much then get Blitz3D instead - however be prepared for a complete information drought. The author released an entire new product without even a single mention of it until two days before release with the words "should have something good for you soon".

Current Project: Retro Compo. Entry.
Rob K
Retired Moderator
23
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 10th Sep 2002
Location: Surrey, United Kingdom
Posted: 6th Apr 2003 17:25
" Service pack 1 for XP "Pro" fixed a massive 300 majour bugs.. so please dont slate this product."

Windows XP IS an Operating System though.

DBS certainly are fixing the product - each patch has an average of about 50 bug fixes and the 3D engine was entirely rewritten for P4.

Current Project: Retro Compo. Entry.
the architect
23
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 6th Jan 2003
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 6th Apr 2003 22:36
The amazing thing I find is how much I have done with DB and how much I do like it. If I did not like DB I would not have bought DBPro. Yet here I am being forced to argue the negative side of the coin. Toga wotsit had merely complained of a bug which had been fixed in previous patches that the rematerialised in P4. As you can imagine he was fed up and said so. Yet all the help and replys he got advised him to REWRITE his code. Why should he.

This is where I get angry and fed up because I have similar problems. I have E-mailed Mike, Rich, posted forums etc and I get absolutly no reply or even acknowledgement that I had a problem.

So what do I do. In the case of dynamic arrays I know they will be fixed so I should wait. Ive programmed a temporary routine so that I can work on other aspects of my game. One of them was to design BSP levels. Now I worked hard to master the editing progs and to achieve reliable results. Then the 3d overhaul appears to slow BSP down. I like BSP levels. The editing programes are very good, the shadowmaps look excellant and the collision is fast. I do not want to consider am alternative if I know there will be some improvement to these problems. But at this rate I will never know until patch 5 comes out whereas I could find Ive wasted time waiting to see. Do you get why I feel frustrated? Im sure it is the same to other "moaners"!

To add salt to injury Rich put his opinion on your forum. Yet it seems ask him a straight forward question you get no reply.

Richard Davey
Retired Moderator
24
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 30th Apr 2002
Location: On the Jupiter Probe
Posted: 6th Apr 2003 22:50
"To add salt to injury Rich put his opinion on your forum. Yet it seems ask him a straight forward question you get no reply."

What forum did I put my "opinion" on? and what question was asked?

"Gentlemen, we are about to short-circuit the Universe!"
DB Team / Atari ST / DarkForge / Retro Gaming
the architect
23
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 6th Jan 2003
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 6th Apr 2003 23:35
I have a combination of objects and bsp, where as objects are invisible plains for bullets and the 50 germen models from dark matter and it is turning out faster in p3.1 than p4.


I wrote this in a forum and emailed some questions to you and mike, about this problem. Wilst I did not expect patch 4 to boost my speed rapidly I was suprised to find I lost about 20 - 30 frames in P4. I just want to know if BSP is going to recieve a 'Boost' and wether new commands will be included.

The other problem was that the gun (a dx object) I loaded had limbs which continually flickered hidden/visible.

Richard Davey
Retired Moderator
24
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 30th Apr 2002
Location: On the Jupiter Probe
Posted: 7th Apr 2003 02:15
Which forum did I put my "opinion" in? If you're going to accuse me of having done something to offend you at least tell me where.

Mail me your question again, I don't recall any relating to BSP and 50 German models.

"Gentlemen, we are about to short-circuit the Universe!"
DB Team / Atari ST / DarkForge / Retro Gaming
Wayne
23
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 3rd Jan 2003
Location:
Posted: 7th Apr 2003 02:32
Is there a date of release for patch 5. nothing definate, but I'd like to know when I get my 3ds's back. I've been using db for a good while, and I've been doing the dbpro thing for two weeks or so. I'm upset about saome things but crying doesn't do anything. Useful commenting is good, and refraining from putting biased opionons is also a plus. I blame my machine. It's a POS 933 mhz with an intel chipset 810. I did look at DbPro on my friends computer tho, and I knew when I saw it, I had made a smart buy, all that remains is to upgrade, wait for patch 5 and cross my fingers! <---Well not that really, I'm sure after I upgrade and p5 is here things will get better. Honestly guys, before this I programmed in Qbasic and Turbo Pascal and that was it. I'm sure there are a lot of c++ and Java types here, but asks yourselves when you wrote a game that looked as good as your db projects? I've never done better work. So I'm happy, and I'm waiting patiently, OH! If anyone wants to recommend a motherboard processor or video card be my guest tax returns are around the corner and I need to upgrade!

Wayne

Never stop in the perseverance of knowledge.
The Key to life's secrets is on that road.
CloseToPerfect
23
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 20th Dec 2002
Location: United States
Posted: 7th Apr 2003 02:46
Dbpro is what it is.

Richard Davey
Retired Moderator
24
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 30th Apr 2002
Location: On the Jupiter Probe
Posted: 7th Apr 2003 04:02
"Is there a date of release for patch 5."

Not yet. It'll be announced as and when it can be.

"Dbpro is what it is."

Is what what?

"Gentlemen, we are about to short-circuit the Universe!"
DB Team / Atari ST / DarkForge / Retro Gaming
Xoid
23
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 8th Mar 2003
Location:
Posted: 7th Apr 2003 04:48 Edited at: 7th Apr 2003 04:51
erm... I don't know If anyone noticed, but what's with ZooT's posted and edited dates?

His first post:

Posted: 31st Dec 1969 6:59 pm Edited: 31st Dec 1969 6:59 pm

Do not anticipate the outcome of the engagement, let nature take it's course, and your tools will strike at the right moment - from "Tao of Jeet Kune Do" by Bruce Lee
AndyUK
23
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 2nd Apr 2003
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 7th Apr 2003 06:58
i think my browser is playing up... cant post on some topics.. but the way things are going maybe i shouldnt. didnt want any of this bickering. im just glad i have a new toy to play with, even if it does have the odd bug.

good luck to all working on projects, im going to put more time into learning rather than explaining my self over the same topic of conversation. come on lads, lets make some games and be done with it..

| P4 2.4(533) | 512DDR(333) | GF4Ti4200 64MB | WinXP Home Sp1 | Cup of CoffeE |
the architect
23
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 6th Jan 2003
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 7th Apr 2003 15:13
Still not mentioned anything about BSP and plans to develope it. Is BSP a waste of time to pursue as Raven advised? The original e-mail was composed differently but the problem was covered, That is.

"A program that used a combination of objects and BSP ran at 30 - 60 fps in patch 3.1. When I added P4 it dropped to 15 to 30 fps."

It was not your opinion that annoyed me or offended. I said...

"To add salt to injury Rich put his opinion on your forum. Yet it seems ask him a straight forward question you get no reply."

My point is that I asked a general question about one of your features, by forum and email and have recieved absolutly no answer. Yet here because it suits you are sending post after post. But since you cannot just give a general pointer to how BSP support is going to develope it must be that you cant.

Richard Davey
Retired Moderator
24
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 30th Apr 2002
Location: On the Jupiter Probe
Posted: 7th Apr 2003 15:22
I have 9 outstanding emails in my tech support folder and not one of them mentions BSP combined with objects, so where-ever you sent your email it wasn't to me.

You accuse me of doing something and then don't even even extend the courtesy of telling me where or what, so I have no intention of answering your question here.

"Gentlemen, we are about to short-circuit the Universe!"
DB Team / Atari ST / DarkForge / Retro Gaming
Galiem
23
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 27th Nov 2002
Location: United States
Posted: 8th Apr 2003 21:47 Edited at: 8th Apr 2003 22:16
Really now.

These are not Everquest forums. If you want to flame a company for their product, go there, as that seems to be the trend.

If you think the DBPro people aren't doing anything to fix bugs, then look here:
http://www.darkbasicpro.com/apollo/view.php?t=8588&b=1

If you don't like DBPro, then move on till you find something you do like. You talk about what professional means. Let me tell you what it means. It means being GOOD ENOUGH to get paid to do something. You are not handling yourself in a professional manner. I do not mean to be insulting, but perhaps if you asked for help with a particular bug, you'd discover there is another way to do what you want in the code.

There are literally HUNDREDS of tools out there for making games. Look around, and you'll see that most of them are MUCH more bug ridden or MUCH more difficult to use than DBPro.

If you want something done YOUR way, you have to do it yourself. I suggest you write your OWN C++, C#, and VB libraries, thus creating your OWN language in a round about way. THAT is how industry standard games are produced at this time. If you don't have a handful of decades to write them yourself, or a huge budget to buy limited liscences to someone else's libraries, then stay put and deal with the limits. This is simply part of what you are trying to do. This is the reality of it. If it were so simple and easy that you'd encounter no roadblocks, then there would be no industry. Any Joe who wanted to make a game would.

I'm not trying to chase you off or discourage you, but your attacking the DBPro administrators and team is immature. Chances are that by writing this, I am fueling a troll, so please take note of what I am about to say.

I am saying this stuff to HELP you. If you reply trying to argue, then you are proving yourself to be a troll. I will not reply or remark on this again. If you need help, however, with some particular code, then I am certain you will find it. That is what is great about this community. We are all like one big team. Respect your teammates, and you'd be surprised at the difference it makes.

Sorry for the long post. Not meaning to hijack the thread, flame, troll, or anything else. Just summing up what some people seem to be trying to say. I am a very blunt person.

Andy Igoe
23
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 6th Oct 2002
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 9th Apr 2003 02:46
There is an old saying in my country (Britain) which I think is apt here: "A bad workman blames his tools.".

How true that is of this thread.

Pneumatic Dryll, Outrageous epic cleric of EQ/Xev
God made the world in 7 days, but we're still waiting for the patch.
riverratt
23
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 6th Apr 2003
Location:
Posted: 9th Apr 2003 04:00
[img] :-s Hello my name is Matt and I just bought Dark Basic pro.
I got hooked on the trial versions of both dark basic and dark basic pro.
I am brand new to programing. I'v bin learning C++ for about 6 months but got
farther in 3 days with dark basic than I did in 6 months with C++.

The only problem is that on my purchesd version I cant seam to get it to work. It downloaded fine and every thing but it will not run any programs accept
very small ones (hello world) is all I can get it to do. It is not my programing either; it won't run any of the tutorials. every time I compile it just spits out an error mesage thet says somthing difernt each time.

My machine is a HP with windows Me, 120 ram, with a S3 grafics card version 4.0. Its system resourses are at 85%, file system 32 bit. Can any one tell me if its my machine (I know its not a corvette) or the program? Or can anyone tell me what the problem is? "runtime error 1504-display cannot be created due to unknown direct x error atline 0", "acces violation at address 00541417 in moduale 'editor.exe'. write of adress 0117f833",and a realy strange one that happend when I tried to run a math tutorial in the help files "access violation at address 0055bf24 in
module 'editor.exe' read of address FFFFFFFF" . this last one repeatedly reopend its window over and over until it fild up the whole screen and system memory until I shut off the computer. ya impropper shut down! The FFFFFFF's are apropriate in this case. It also had other errer messages. each time it is different. So far I have restored my computer,run my mantenence wizzard and even downloaded direct x 9,and have restarted my computer 10 times or so. Is directX9 compatible with dark basic pro?


TogaMario
23
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 30th Jan 2003
Location:
Posted: 9th Apr 2003 05:33 Edited at: 9th Apr 2003 05:35
Lol, "A bad workman blames his tools" ... When's the last time you bought a hammer with bugs? Not to begin controversy, i'm happy knowing the graphics issues are on the grinding stone might even help me ... but i've got my new graphics card on the way! So it doesn't matter anymore. Thanks again Rich, for being patient.

P.S. This is what the alphabet would look like if Q and R were eliminated.
Richard Davey
Retired Moderator
24
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 30th Apr 2002
Location: On the Jupiter Probe
Posted: 9th Apr 2003 06:48
Depends.. when's the last time you bought a hammer with 1050 different actions?

"Gentlemen, we are about to short-circuit the Universe!"
DB Team / Atari ST / DarkForge / Retro Gaming
Kobrakahn
23
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 8th Apr 2003
Location:
Posted: 9th Apr 2003 08:28
My fear is that if DBPro doesn't become stable soon, the whole project will collapse under the weight of all the negative publicity. Face it, people like me who are seriously trying to evaluate it before purchase are going to read the forums and try the trial download. My experience with the trial has not been good when trying to run my old DB stuff, and the posts I am seeing about DB "Pro" have been less than encouraging. Yes I like all the advertised features, but many arguably important do not function according to posts. Yes I'm happy that they are working on fixing these bugs, but each new patch seems to create a heap of new probs. Beyond the initial flood of preorders and DBDN subscriptions, new people are going to start taking a wait and see approach before buying and existing DBDN'ers may not continue their subscriptions. I fear that this may jeopardize the whole project!

Now I don't mean that they should just crap out quick fixes at the speed of light either! Being a professional biz app developer myself, I have seen (by my own hand especially) what "cowboy coding" can do in terms of side effects because I was rushing a fix out.

I assume that in their QA testing they have a suite of programs (perhaps gleaned from submitted bug reports) that at least test the gamut of commands that DBP is supposed to have and that before each patch they have run through them all before giving it the go ahead? Judging by many posts, this is not the case!

Also, any chance of having a patched up or patch-able trial version anytime soon?

Sorry for going on like this but DBPro has so much potential that I would hate to see it go belly up before it even has the chance to prove itself!

TogaMario
23
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 30th Jan 2003
Location:
Posted: 9th Apr 2003 08:56
Good point ... that hammer never did much but sit there It required a manual compile and i'm not too keen on that idea

P.S. This is what the alphabet would look like if Q and R were eliminated.
Suave
23
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 1st Apr 2003
Location:
Posted: 9th Apr 2003 09:21 Edited at: 9th Apr 2003 09:22
Galiem is right.He hit the nail on the head with this one. I personally believe in DBpro and will continue to believe in it as it improves. Though everyone would like to see all the bugs gone from the program this is not a realistic expectation at this time. I'm an adult and I've come to learn that good things come to those who are patient. I haven't been using this program for long and I've also encountered some difficulties. I could not use Patch 4 at all with my graphics card. However, I will wait for the next patch. I love the possibilties of this program as I'm an Art Student in college and a pretty good artist. My programming skills,however, are not that great. It is part of human nature to point out the bad things in everything and never the good. Now that we know that, lets not give in to that and stay positive.

PS..Please don't put down how I'm new to it and we'll see how I feel in a couple of months. That would be very childish and a waste of forum space as I would not give it a reply.

Richard Davey
Retired Moderator
24
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 30th Apr 2002
Location: On the Jupiter Probe
Posted: 9th Apr 2003 14:13
"My fear is that if DBPro doesn't become stable soon, the whole project will collapse under the weight of all the negative publicity."

This is an age-old argument though (one that was raised when DB was first out) and is more assumption than anything else. No-one knows our sales figures, our forecasts, our publishing deals or really anything beyond what we tell you about in the newsletters and on the site. We have no intention of changing this fact either, it's very sensitive business information our competitiors would love dearly to get hold of. But without these facts it's impossible for anyone to make an informed judgement about where things are going - and I can tell you this much, it sure as hell isn't towards "collapse".

Cheers,

Rich

"Gentlemen, we are about to short-circuit the Universe!"
TogaMario
23
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 30th Jan 2003
Location:
Posted: 9th Apr 2003 20:13
@suave

A great teacher once told me that you're not an artist till someone tells you that you are. What kinda art are you studying? I'm in Digital Animation, so i'm an artsy fart myself! About the same with my programming skills I did take c++ for 2 years and played with QBASIC for ages.

I'm still trying to find a good explaination of the application of vectors and what-not. I want to get into the complexities baaad.

P.S. This is what the alphabet would look like if Q and R were eliminated.
Galiem
23
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 27th Nov 2002
Location: United States
Posted: 9th Apr 2003 21:04
kk Maybe I do have to post one more time on this lol

I seriously can see DBPro becoming the next huge development tool. A few more features, and a few more tweeks, and it can be up there with C# and VB.

Okay, maybe there's a bit of time left before it's that widespread, reliable, or powerful. The fact of the matter is that it WILL get there. I have no doubt in this whatsoever.

I am actually honored to be a part of it at the get go. Once API is fully integrated, the ATI is good to go, DLL's have callbacks, and a few issues are resolved, this will be up there with all the big boys.

How many new languages can say that? Can Blitz? I doubt it. From what I've seen, even those things the language cannot support directly with a simple command can be made with a little effort and creativity.

Case in point, I was dismayed to find that creating a menu bar and pop up windows for my program using Windows resources couldn't be done as quickly as in, say, C++. Now, however, I have successfully created a tamplate for automated GUI production, which need minimal input from the user. This code, though it has a month or two before being complete, allows creation of fully custom interfaces.

Here's the great kick in the arse though. What I have written allows you to mimick the Windows GUI with greater ease than using the resources already in place! Not only that, but it adds FAR more functionality and room for customization.

Since this will be built directly into my world editor/ DRDBMS/ games production suit, it won't be a standalone application. There is a great chance, however, that I will release it to the DBPro community anyway. Only thing is, it'll have many menu items that will be in the final product that will do nothing when clicked right now. Only the GUI creation portion of the program will be operational when I send this version out, but it will let ya see what power truly is in this language.

Yes, it does have limits. I'm pouring through code now to try and figure out why the compiler crashes when I implement a certain array. Yes, there are stumbling blocks. Guess what though? I've already hit a milestone, and I've been working on my project SOLO for a very short time.

Keep in mind that power languages like C++ that give easy access to work done by others can sometimes be a double blessing. I have certainly learned that, and this is only the GUI! Imagine what I can come across when I get to Matrix creation, object loading, events, scripting, lighting, pixel shading, sound, etc, etc, etc.

Sorry for another long post 8)

Suave
23
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 1st Apr 2003
Location:
Posted: 10th Apr 2003 11:18 Edited at: 10th Apr 2003 11:19
TogaMario: I'm currently studing 2D and 3D animation,conceptual drawing ,storyboarding and 3D modeling as well as other related topics. My professors, friends and even a few professional artists from many different artistic backrounds(I will not name them)tell me I that I have the potential to be one of the very best artist in which ever field of art I decide to enter. They call me an artist because they say I already do professional quality art. I however just think I'm a prety good art student and very happy when ever I can improve my "artistic talents". If I will every achieve the level of success they predict for me, I guess we will see. I've studied VBasic and a little C++ but my programming abilities aren't very good. A program like DBpro gives me the opportunity to play to my artistic strengths while working with a simple programming language.


Andy Igoe
23
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 6th Oct 2002
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 10th Apr 2003 11:34
Quote: "Lol, "A bad workman blames his tools" ... When's the last time you bought a hammer with bugs"

That sounds very much like you are blaming your hammer, why not pour some dissinfectant on it?

Pneumatic Dryll, Outrageous epic cleric of EQ/Xev
God made the world in 7 days, but we're still waiting for the patch.

Login to post a reply

Server time is: 2026-07-10 19:47:34
Your offset time is: 2026-07-10 19:47:34