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826
Off-Topic / Re: They killed GNOME
« on: October 06, 2009, 01:06:11 am »
I've never had a problem with flash - as long as I picked the proprietary flash and not gnash.
827
Off-Topic / Re: They killed GNOME
« on: October 04, 2009, 06:26:42 pm »Quote
Vista has four things Linux doesn't: Paint, Game Maker, fast search and Flash that doesn't use 100% CPU.Linux has KolourPaint, which is a much more functional paint clone, with the same simplicity.
Then there's LateralGM for your GM needs. And you can still install the proprietary flash to get all your flash needs met. As for "fast search", I'm not sure what you mean. There's the terminal commands 'grep', 'find', 'locate', and 'which', all of which are much faster than any of the Windows/DOS equivalents (if such exist. For example, 'which' does not exist in Win/Dos, at least, not that I'm aware of).
828
Announcements / Re: OpenAL + Linux
« on: October 03, 2009, 06:40:12 pm »
Fortunately Ubuntu 9.10 replaces HAL with DeviceKit. With a bit of luck, this might fix your problem. The beta was released recently if you want to try it.
829
General ENIGMA / Re: Enigma IDE (written in C++ using wxWidgets)
« on: September 19, 2009, 11:50:55 pm »Quote
It's essentially the default X dialogsX has dialogs? When I was programming the X code for Enigma, I certainly don't remember seeing any of that.
830
Announcements / Re: I'm bookmarking this day
« on: September 17, 2009, 02:14:55 pm »
I can't imagine how threading AI would be useful. Practically everything but the input is dependent on the results of the AI.
831
Announcements / Re: I'm bookmarking this day
« on: September 15, 2009, 05:59:07 pm »
And chances are you'll never use more than 4 cores.
832
Announcements / Re: I'm bookmarking this day
« on: September 15, 2009, 12:14:53 am »
LGM uses threads to load the Game Information and Global Game Settings frames without freezing LGM itself. Those frames are simply inaccessible until they are fully loaded, and if the user requests them and they are not fully loaded yet, LGM will wait for them to finish loading (essentially it will momentarily freeze). Similarly, LGM calls Enigma in a thread so that LGM isn't frozen while enigma is running. We actually use several threads for enigma. One for running enigma itself, one for retrieving output, and one for retrieving errors. Whenever output/error text is retrieved, it synchronizes with LGM and appends it to a textarea.
These are just a few examples of how threads are useful.
These are just a few examples of how threads are useful.
833
Announcements / Re: I'm bookmarking this day
« on: September 14, 2009, 02:24:49 am »
The problems with threading is that if you wish to draw, they *must* be synchronized in order to avoid two problems:
1) frame lag - e.g. one second into the game, thread1.object is on frame 30 and draws such, while thread2.object is on frame 20 - a 10-frame difference)
2) tearing - a fractional-frame difference between the threads. If your frames are drawn 30 times a second, and there is a 0.900 frame lag between two threads, then you will get one thread's image drawn, and then the other's image drawn only 1/300th of a second before the screen gets flushed, causing the image to flash or not appear at all.
Thread issues are almost always solved with synchronization, which means waiting for one of the threads to catch up (or reach a certain synchronization point, such as the begin of the Draw phase - in which case you don't care if there's a 10-frame difference between the threads, as long as it's not a fractional difference like 10.001 or 0.900).
1) frame lag - e.g. one second into the game, thread1.object is on frame 30 and draws such, while thread2.object is on frame 20 - a 10-frame difference)
2) tearing - a fractional-frame difference between the threads. If your frames are drawn 30 times a second, and there is a 0.900 frame lag between two threads, then you will get one thread's image drawn, and then the other's image drawn only 1/300th of a second before the screen gets flushed, causing the image to flash or not appear at all.
Thread issues are almost always solved with synchronization, which means waiting for one of the threads to catch up (or reach a certain synchronization point, such as the begin of the Draw phase - in which case you don't care if there's a 10-frame difference between the threads, as long as it's not a fractional difference like 10.001 or 0.900).
834
Announcements / Re: Greetings from LInux
« on: September 10, 2009, 07:37:15 pm »
I have a friend who bought a MacBook and then reformatted it and installed Ubuntu. Can't blame them.
835
Announcements / Re: Greetings from LInux
« on: September 01, 2009, 07:54:42 pm »
Ubuntu doesn't use proprietary drivers by default, so it pipes things through your card using a non-proprietary non-accelerated driver for your card. To get accelerated graphics (that is to say, to utilize routines that are proprietary to your card in order to run graphics at a reasonable speed), you would need to get the proprietary drivers. System > Administration > Hardware Drivers.
Again, this is if you don't mind polluting your system with proprietary software/drivers (much like myself).
Again, this is if you don't mind polluting your system with proprietary software/drivers (much like myself).
836
Issues Help Desk / Re: Suggest image editor?
« on: August 29, 2009, 12:02:15 am »
Our image editor utilizes a special buffering technique that GM's does not use, so our speed should be about equal if not faster than GM. As for features, we're trying to keep it simple - unlike the Gimp, where you have to go through 8 menus just to create a canvas and draw a pixel on it. Something of a hybrid between GM's and MS Paint.
I did mention before that LGM "defaults" to Gimp. You can easily modify the preferences file to change it to use another image editor, or even create a plugin to override the image editor and use your own (such as a native code one). You don't need to compile LGM ot native code in order to utilize a native code image editor.
In fact, with plugins, you can override any/all of LGM's resource editors and replace them with something else, such as native code ones. At one point we tried to negotiate with someone who was writing a native code room editor, but they never got back to us. In the meantime, Quadduc rewrote the rendering code for the room editor to make it more modular (and thus allow more advanced buffering techniques), which should boost performance. He recently finished that code and we merged it into the latest SVN revisions, and it will be in the 1.6 release.
I did mention before that LGM "defaults" to Gimp. You can easily modify the preferences file to change it to use another image editor, or even create a plugin to override the image editor and use your own (such as a native code one). You don't need to compile LGM ot native code in order to utilize a native code image editor.
In fact, with plugins, you can override any/all of LGM's resource editors and replace them with something else, such as native code ones. At one point we tried to negotiate with someone who was writing a native code room editor, but they never got back to us. In the meantime, Quadduc rewrote the rendering code for the room editor to make it more modular (and thus allow more advanced buffering techniques), which should boost performance. He recently finished that code and we merged it into the latest SVN revisions, and it will be in the 1.6 release.
837
General ENIGMA / Re: Expanding Enigma
« on: August 27, 2009, 10:17:33 pm »
No. Like I said, you'll be using Sockets instead of DirectPlay, which means a different function set. Your mplay_ functions will no longer work, and all socket code will be Enigma-specific. But the functionality will be very similar. As anyone is very aware, the mplay code is grossly deficient; to create direct replacements for them would be an insult.
838
General ENIGMA / Re: Expanding Enigma
« on: August 27, 2009, 04:50:00 pm »Quote
I don't think anyone will do the mplay functions.I did the mplay functions. You'll basically be using Sockets instead of the deprecated DirectPlay. I've been trying to create a number of functions to simplify the task and to make it as simple to use as mplay, if not simpler, while still providing the power of sockets, such as communicating with http and ftp.
839
Issues Help Desk / Re: Suggest image editor?
« on: August 27, 2009, 04:44:08 pm »
LGM defaults to using GIMP. We're working on our own image editor, written in Java, but it is low priority, and nobody else seems to want to jump on the project and help out.
840
General ENIGMA / Re: Enigma IDE (written in C++ using GTK+)
« on: August 18, 2009, 11:54:24 pm »
Actually LGM isn't "tacked on". We're both essentially the same project, an "alternative GM". However, we figured it would be most efficient if we split up into 2 teams - one to develop an IDE, and the other to develop the compiler. Originally the project was going to be entirely in Java, but then Josh offered to make it in C, and he was making very rapid progress, so I gave it to him.
Since the IDE and the compiler are completely separate, you're welcome to develop your own IDE. I'd love to help, but I don't know C++; only C. I exclusively use Linux, and wrote most of the Linux UI code for Enigma (in C - I think Josh has upgraded it to C++ since then).
For SVN hosting, I'd recommend sourceforge or google. LateralGM uses opensvn.csie.org (since it was one of the first to offer Trac), but they have a lot of downtime, and sourceforge has since added the ability to use trac.
Having 2 IDEs is a good thing because then it gives the user choice, and there's no monopoly on the IDE.
Since the IDE and the compiler are completely separate, you're welcome to develop your own IDE. I'd love to help, but I don't know C++; only C. I exclusively use Linux, and wrote most of the Linux UI code for Enigma (in C - I think Josh has upgraded it to C++ since then).
For SVN hosting, I'd recommend sourceforge or google. LateralGM uses opensvn.csie.org (since it was one of the first to offer Trac), but they have a lot of downtime, and sourceforge has since added the ability to use trac.
Having 2 IDEs is a good thing because then it gives the user choice, and there's no monopoly on the IDE.