Mini Adventure

[SpuTTer]

What news on the Mini Adventure front???

[kevglass]

Surprise, Surprise, I'm still working on it! Wow! So unlike me.

Recent activities:

* Moving house
* Lots of bug fixes
* Addition of NPCs.
* Getting hold of more graphics, creating a world map which can be found here:  http://www.newdawnsoftware.com/miniad/map.gif
* Working on some story line, ideas and names. The game is most likely going to be called "Lights of Laminos" (Laminos being the name of the world)

I'm currently working on a system to support conversation with the NPCs (which will be in the next update, soon honest). Then onto inventory and combat. Then action scripts.

Gonna need an artist at some point I guess,

EDIT: Oh, and New Dawn Software (read Endolf and Me) have just ordered a hosted machine. So mini adventure will be moved to a new server soon.

Kev

[Breakfast]

I'm amazied at the skills that shows. Moving house has kept me away from writing any spare-time code for the last 4 weeks or so...

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[SpuTTer]

lol. I thought that "moving house" was a feature in the game. I was trying to figure out how you'd enter it.

Maybe you should add a moving house to the game as a parody

[kevglass]

Coo! An update..

First off, when you run mini adventure (lights of laminos) you need to change your server to:

bob.newdawnsoftware.com

We've rented a hosted box, so now its not hosted on my home network or anything Be aware, since the server is hosted in the US you might experience more lag than before.

I've just added conversation support, so you can now chat to :

Wiseman Thalumus - A general game information expert
Trevor - The barkeep (first real NPC)
Monkey (2)  - The monkeys who wander around

Thanks to those who have been checking it out when they get a chance, every little bit is helping, honest.

Kev

[markush]

Hi!

Works good with my machine (Linux, Blackdown-1.4.1-beta) as long as i use the keyboard to move (30fps). Scrolling gets jerky when I use the mouse (20-25fps).

Markus

[blahblahblahh]

Kev, have you sent me details for JGF for this game? I don't think so (I'm pretty sure it's not there at the moment, and I've included everything sent to me). It looks like it's at the point where it's probably worth it - with some description to explain it's in a pre-alpha state, no?

[nonnus29]

The gfx are REALLY nice for this type of thing.  You should write a tutorial about making a in game gui, it looks great.  Two problems:

1.  Doesn't fit in my 800x600 screen; can't see the chat text entry area

2.  I'm on dial up (in the us); when I double clicked on the Inn and walked away I was transported into the Inn.

[kevglass]

@Markus

Whats the spec of your linux boxen? I'm trying to get a feel for what people are managing to squeeze out of their machines. I agree tho, I've already had reports that keyboard on linux seems to interfere less with performance.

@BlahBlahBlah

I hadn't considered it far enough along yet for JGF (but I would have sent it as soon as possible, honest ) However, if you're up for considering pre-alpha state games then I'll sort it out straight away.

@Nonnus

On the 800x600 front, just for you I added an option to take the decoration off the main window which should make the whole game viewable on an 800x600 screen. Its in the Options panel thats off the login box.

As to the dial up thing, actually it turns out you could do that on any connection. Its to do with the fact that movement of the player is controlled locally. BUG NOTED and added to the list. Thanks.

Finally, as to a tutorial.. can do. The GUI itself is very simple tho.

Thanks for the interest guys,

Kev

[markush]

I have a Athlon Xp 2200+, 1.5G ram, Radeon 9700pro, Debian unstable.

I tried it again with unlimited frames, they are now about 70-90, but mouse movement is still crap.

Markus

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[kevglass]

Crikey! Thats appauling. Do ATi have proper drivers for Linux?

Thats really scary tho, I'd assume with the hardware you have that even software rendering should be blistering.

On my gentoo install, with GF4 I get around 800 fps even with mouse moving.. having real problems getting  linux consistancy.

Kev

[markush]

i tested it now with the same machine, under winxp. 1800 fps and mouse movemnt is smooth to

Ati has linux drivers, but i have some probs with them, I get acceleration only as root. But i don't think it has to do with the graphics card, since i get 70 fps with unlimited frames on, even when scrolling with the mouse. Seems to me that mouse movement isn't updated fast enough.

[SpuTTer]

Still working great here Kev. Talked to the monkeys for a few hours, great fun!

[kevglass]

Sorry, no updates recently (although stuff changing in the background), got side tracked by certain site designs and tutorials.

Next update will probably be a new world before I go on to implement inventory and combat.

Interestingly, I just cooerced a co-worker to try it out on a Solaris box. Ran like a dog on what seemed like an ok spec machine. Is Java2D not accelerated on Solaris either!? Surely Sun got the best implementation of the VM for Sun machines?

Kev

[kevglass]

New exciting update.. well, no not really, for anyone using 1.5 beta there is now an option supported to turn on the OpenGL pipeline.

This _should_ only be supported on 1.5 and requires a restart of the client (since the property needs to be setup at the start)

Any tests appreciated,

Kev

[AndersDahlberg]

No difference between opengl turned on or off.

Tried it in 100 and unlimited and the "feel" of framerate was the same (i.e. 100 very smooth and unlimited ~400fps but "stuttering").

linux (gentoo, 2.6.5)
athlon 900
512 mb
geforce 2mx + nvidia 1.0.4496 (IIRC)

[kevglass]

Heh, thats interesting actually, just had campbell trying it on 1.5 and he noticed some stuttering.. I'm pretty confused as to whats causing it, although so far it might just be a timing issue on linux.

Looks like I'm going to have to start getting 1.5 to test with if everyone is moving over asap..

Kev

[bwbrooklyn]

Thought I would pass along my experience.

Mac OS X 10.3.3
400 mhz G4
640 MB ram
Rage 128 Pro (16 MB)
1.4.2 JVM

fps 7 - 17 and a constant smooth then stutter, smooth then stutter...
looks great though and seems to function well; launched with no problems, character creation worked...
very cool.

Macs are shipping with MUCH better graphics cards these days though (so maybe I need to get one)

[javawillie]

Hi guys. I tried out the game again earlier tonight. It is looking good. For the most part it ran at 30 fps but I noticed the periodic stuttering that others are reporting.  I would say I was on for about ten minutes or so and it probably stuttered five times during that time.  During the stutters it would drop down as low as 4-5 fps.

I'm on a Dell Latitude P3 1.13 GHz with 512 MB of RAM, running Win XP Pro.  I'm using JDK 1.4.2_03-b02.  My video card is NVidia GeForce2 Go.  If you need any other info let me know.

Willie

[kevglass]

Thanks for the feedback guys! Thats great!

If I can only get the stuttering to happen here I'll get it fixed

MacOSX probably doesn't matter you've got a low end graphics card, there's absolutely no hardware acceleration in 1.4 (however, apparantly as soon as 1.5 ships it'll be possible to use the OpenGL pipeline woo woo!)

EDIT: Kev

[AndersDahlberg]

disclaimer: Newbiee alert

Hmm, I noticed in your code (ahem that you have delta as the actual time between rendering, and you're using

1	SystemTimer.sleepUntil(startTime+(frameInterval));

to get correct fps (i.e. 1/frameInterval).

But if you subtract the difference between your actual render time and wanted shouldn't that give an even smoother animation?
Something like the following:

1   2   3   4   5   6

// private double sleepTime = frameInterval; sleepTime = frameInterval; if (delta > frameInterval) {     sleepTime -= delta - frameInterval; } SystemTimer.sleepUntil(startTime+sleepTime);

Please correct me if I'm wrong - just interested if the above would help

[kevglass]

I'm not sure I understand it, but wouldn't that only take effect if the render took more than the intended frame interval. At the moment, if thats the case then we don't sleep at all. Not sure if its relevant but note startTime is recorded before we start the render.

Kev

[kul_th_las]

Haven't played the demo since the original postings.

You've come a long way so far. Keep up the good work.

[AndersDahlberg]

I changed the SystemTimer to use System.nanoTime() and ran a test (limited to 100fps) with the gameLoop in case one having

1	SystemTimer.sleepUntil(startTime+frameInterval);

and in case two

1   2   3   4   5

sleepTime = frameInterval; if (delta > frameInterval) {     sleepTime -= delta - frameInterval; } SystemTimer.sleepUntil(startTime+sleepTime);

On my machine (linux, geforce2mx,java1.5beta1) the first case gives varying fps betwen 92-100 (100 when staying still, and varying between 92-98 when walking). Case two though gives a more or less rock solid 100 fps.

When I run your excellent game with the gage timer instead, both approaches gives an fps a little more solid than case one but still not 100fps most of the time.

This is of course just a minor observation as the "feel" of the game on my machine is smooth regardless of which timer/timing code is used. The reason I tried this was because I was curious if it would make any difference to actually sleep the "correct" (well...) amount of time

Sooo, my conclusion is that any stuttering problem is probably due to timing inaccurracies on the platform and not depending on which "sleeping code" is used (as you've already written).

[kevglass]

I considered that it might be to do with not having yield() in the loop anywhere (on some threading models thats going to matter). I've added that to the latest version (not uploaded quite yet)

In addition, as a side effect of my last update the context menu that someone wanted (logged as a bug) has made the release code.

If you right click (or press space if you're a keyboard user) on the "active" items, a menu will appear to show you the supported options. At the moment only a single option is defined for each item. (Note: if you're using keys the menu is controlled with the cursors, space and escape).

Small addition I know, but its honestly still going

Kev

[bwbrooklyn]

MacOSX probably doesn't matter you've got a low end graphics card, there's absolutely no hardware acceleration in 1.4 (however, apparantly as soon as 1.5 ships it'll be possible to use the OpenGL pipeline woo woo!)

Ah. Useful tidbit. My processor is a bit underpowered as well. When it comes to Java apps on Mac OS X (and my 400mhz box) ,  Eclipse is just usable enough and Poseidon(UML) is almost not usable.

I don't think I've tried any games other than yours so I'm not sure if scrolling/stuttering is a problem there as well. I just checked Apple's developer site and no 1.5 beta/preview yet. probably a few months away.

[20thCenturyBoy]

Doesn't seem to do anything on my WinXp box, just uses 90% CPU with nowt happening! Am I doing something wrong?

[kevglass]

Not had a chance to get back to this for a while, any time now.. honest.

As to the failure on XP, anything reported on the Webstart log? Do you actually get the login box? Do you get anything?

Kev

[20thCenturyBoy]

Webstart has a log? Where's that then?

I get the login screen, and I've registered successfully. I click Login, it says "Connecting" then...nothing. I did a netstat and saw the established session to 146.67-18-125.reverse.theplanet.com:10990 so it looks like it can communicate ok. I thought it might be my firewall so I disabled it but to no avail.

Maybe it's cos I'm in Australia  :-/

[kevglass]

Webstart log, File->Preferences->Advanced->Show Java Console.

Whats your username? I can check the logs and see if you managed to get a connect..

What Java version? Platform etc?

Kev