-= Piranha 2d Official Test #2 =-

Hey guys, so i've made it to piranha 2d 0.2 beta. and now I'd like to test it out on everyone else's computers. The engine is known not to crash on any computer i've tested it on so far, and that's a lot of computers.

...Ok, some un "important" info...

Piranha 2d is a 2D graphics engine, sort of like GBA, only for windows. There still exist some inconsistencies with how it works, for example, the music will reset every time you switch resolution and such other things. However, those are little things to consider right now... The base code works and works well in 8-bit mode. Which is what your desktop will be changed to once you run the engine; and when you're done it will switch it back to whatever it was set to previously, so don't worry about that. What you MIGHT want to worry is that on some computers this behaviour caused some windows icons/buttons remain undrawn, even after switching back to whatever your resolution is. It's no big deal though. The reason it works that way, for now, is that there is no code to support any other modes, in future this will be considered and the engine will run in whatever bit mode. Also IF, it crashes and messes up your computer, it won't be my fault, however it's never crashed before. One time things got sluggish/slow, but that was when i was testing it on an old-schoolc omputer. So that's something to understand before running this.

The 0.2beta demo features some 2d graphics effects. including, line drawing, pixels, font engine, pic rendering, pic stretching, pic rotating/zoom. any resolution is supported either full screen or windowed, the switch is seamless, so the game can be still played after switching the res (to anything really) on the "fly". Eventually, small game dev teams or any other indies will be able to license it and play around with it. It's going to be really easy to make games with. As in, all of the graphics/sound functions are taken care of, so the developer will concentrate on creating the game exclusively. Check out the more info page, which covers some features the engine is going to have.

The EXECUTABLE: www.falloutsoftware.com/piranha-bin.zip (194kb)
More info: www.falloutsoftware.com/piranha.php4

There are many things this little engine can do. I don't have time to document everything right now (such as console commands etc.). But if you want to play around, go to console, enter these commands:

/dumpref
/controls
/settings
/network
/res 640 480 8

Anyway, i would like some feedback, comments etc., whatever it might be. thanks.

Greg Damon
gregd@falloutsoftware.com
www.falloutsoftware.com

Worked perfectly;

AMD thunderbird 1ghz; 392 megs ram; win2k; no gfx accel

Looking forward to playing something using this engine.

Likewise - no problems here

P4 1.4ghz, 256Mb ram, win2K, geforce 2 (64Mb vram)

Got about 600fps in software mode and 1200 in hardware.

Worked fine here too (P4 2.0 GHz, 256 Mb RAM, WinXP, GForce 4).

But it does set the desktop to a very low refresh rate (probably 60 Hz), I'ld try to avoid that if possible.

Mike W., the video card is actually responsible for locking frames to monitor refresh rate. if your card options allow doing so, you can disable that functionality. I personally dont see that as a problem, 60-70fps is more than enough for a 2D game.

Also question to Mike... I downloaded your duck game, and when i switch to "use low resolution" it goes a lot faster than when it plays at "high-res" mode. Any comments on that? i noticed it was kind of slow. but i think that when i switch to low-res mode it goes as you wanted it to be. just in high-res, the frame rate is a lot slower, maybe in half or 1/3 something. this is on a p4 1600+.

greg

Mike W., the video card is actually responsible for locking frames to monitor refresh rate. if your card options allow doing so, you can disable that functionality. I personally dont see that as a problem, 60-70fps is more than enough for a 2D game. If you normally always work with 85 or 100 Hz and the screen suddenly goes to 60, it looks like its blinking all the time and I never want to look at it for more than a few minutes.

If your game would only run full screen, I don't think many people would notice it if you would set it to 60 Hz (unless you use bright colors, white screens), but I think that suddenly changing the entire desktop to a lower refresh rate would disturb almost anyone. I would just set it to the current refresh rate.

Also question to Mike... I downloaded your duck game, and when i switch to "use low resolution" it goes a lot faster than when it plays at "high-res" mode. Any comments on that? i noticed it was kind of slow. but i think that when i switch to low-res mode it goes as you wanted it to be. just in high-res, the frame rate is a lot slower, maybe in half or 1/3 something. this is on a p4 1600+. Yes, the high resolution is really slow if you run it in a window, especially if your desktop uses 32 bit color, but it's actually pretty fast if you run it full screen. It might be something with DelphiX, but it seems like building the 320x200 screen, scaling it to 640x400 and then resizing the result to the current window size is just too much to do in one frame. Anyway, I'm now going to disable high resolution mode by default for windowed mode.

Originally posted by Mike Wiering
If your game would only run full screen, I don't think many people would notice it if you would set it to 60 Hz (unless you use bright colors, white screens), [/B]

I would certaintly notice. It's not that the game animation and movement is not smooth enough, but the screen simply flickers on some systems when running at 60hz.

Battlefield on my computer at 60hz makes my eyes water after a few minutes.

it's not that the screen flickers at 60hz or any other hz. it's the fact that if your program doesn't refresh the screen buffer at the same hz as your monitor refresh rate (whcih could be anything from 60 to 80 rr or whatever...) you will encounter some screan tearing effects. on most video cards, DirectDraw, in full screen, hardware mode, locks the screen to whatever your monitor refresh rate is set to, to avoid such effects.

Originally posted by gregd
it's not that the screen flickers at 60hz or any other hz. it's the fact that if your program doesn't refresh the screen buffer at the same hz as your monitor refresh rate (whcih could be anything from 60 to 80 rr or whatever...) you will encounter some screan tearing effects. on most video cards, DirectDraw, in full screen, hardware mode, locks the screen to whatever your monitor refresh rate is set to, to avoid such effects.

well thats only if you don't wait for vertical refresh to finish before drawing. 60hz always look bad here, even on the desktop when no graphics is being updated.

Is this related to certain monitors? Because I often hear people complaining of this, but have never had cause to complain about 60hz on my viewsonic. Or 50hz on my TV for that matter. Or maybe it's just certain sets of eyes?

Contrary to popular belief it's rarely down to an individual's eyes but actually a product of the phosphor persistence. Some phosphor layers fade very fast (the more expensive the monitor the worse it is generally - because they are designed to run at higher refresh rates). You use lower persistence phosphor on faster refresh rates to eliminate "blur" or "smudging" when objects move.

The problem doesn't occur on LCDs of course, and if what you're watching is sufficiently interesting you won't notice 60Hz on an expensive monitor either. The flicker effect is much more noticeable on static images when you've got more time to stare at fixed points without looking at moving objects (ie. you're working, not playing!)

Cas :)

Originally posted by princec
[B]Contrary to popular belief it's rarely down to an individual's eyes but actually a product of the phosphor persistence. Some phosphor layers fade very fast (the more expensive the monitor the worse it is generally - because they are designed to run at higher refresh rates). You use lower persistence phosphor on faster refresh rates to eliminate "blur" or "smudging" when objects move.

Now that I think about it I did not use to notice it in the old days. The monitor I have now is rather expensive, I think. 21" IBM P260.

More information about Piranha2D can be found at:
http://web1.t43.greatnet.de/viewtopic.php?t=665