Results 1 to 4 of 4

Thread: performance question

  1. #1
    sunnyl
    Guest

    Exclamation

    I've started the planning stage of a game I'm writing. It is a tile based network game. The game will run at full screen (form.width = screen.width etc) and the graphics will be BitBlted onto the form.

    What I am worried about is the speed that this will run at. There will be projectiles and since it's multiplayer there'll be multiple units on the screen plus the tiles. From experience, will this kind of setup run too slow with VB on a fairly (sub) standard PC? This is quite important, since if the game cannot run at decent speeds, there would be no point in me continuing the project.

    Thanks for all input.

  2. #2
    Fanatic Member PsychoMark's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2001
    Location
    Netherlands
    Posts
    540
    VB is fast enough, as long as you code it correctly. The problem is probably going to be the drawing. I recommend learning DirectDraw 7. Why not DX8? Well, AFAIK DX8 needs a 3D accelerator, and DirectDraw 7 doesn't, it can emulate the parts not supported by the hardware directly. And since DX8 is still backwards compatible you can still use DX7 which having DX8 installed.

    The game I'm currently working on runs on my pc (P133, 32 MB RAM, Voodoo3 2000 PCI) with a frame rate of 50/60 FPS (using DirectDraw 7), which can't be done using BitBlt AFAIK...

    Hope this helps a bit...
    Teaudirenopossum.Musasapientumfixaestinaure.
    (I can't hear you. There's a banana in my ear)

  3. #3
    Frenzied Member CyberCarsten's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 1999
    Location
    Aalborg Ø, Denmark
    Posts
    1,544
    If you want "state of the art" performance regarding execution speed, you should use C++. Using C++ will also help you to get rid of the almost 2Mb run-time Vb requires.
    razor
    Software Engineer Student, Aalborg University, Denmark
    http://www.cs.auc.dk

    My email at AUC: will get a new email soon
    My website: http://www.razorsoftware.net


    Windows XP Pro/ Gentoo Linux (Laptop)
    Windows XP Pro (Home PC)

  4. #4
    Frenzied Member HarryW's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2000
    Location
    Heiho no michi
    Posts
    1,827
    DirectDraw isn't hard. With regards to DX8, I sincerely doubt that there is no HEL in DX8! That defeats the whole purpose of using DirectX (nearly). There is no specifically 2D graphics API within it, that's the major difference. Direct3D and DirectDraw have been replaced with a new Interface called DirectX Graphics. Basically it's D3D but with a bit more. If you can't be bothered with the 3D stuff if you don't need it (and I wouldn't blame you) then I'd use the DX7 DirectDraw interfaces instead. They're still available in DX8, they're just left over prom previous versions. There will be no more development of DDraw.
    Harry.

    "From one thing, know ten thousand things."

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  



Click Here to Expand Forum to Full Width