Ereon Member Posts: 1018 From: Ohio, United States Registered: 04-12-2005 |
After numerous experiments and several weeks trying to get shaders to work in my game I came to a startling and abrupt realization.......my laptop doesn't support shader of ANY kind. So, that means all my dreams of wonderful, cutting edge graphics are down the toilet and I have to go old school. The advantage is though that once I get my laptop back (it's in for repairs) I can begin immediately. I'm uprading the collision engine to the latest version, and also upgrading Dark Basic Pro to its latest patch as well which will make for smaller .exe and better, more reliable functionality. I'm also looking at a kicking physics engine for Dark Basic that will be released soon, and I might invest in that as well. Just wanted to keep you guys updated on what was going on. Ereon P.S. If anyone knows any sites where I can get some info on Gothic architecture I'd be very grateful, I've got some great ideas for some really neat architecture but it's help to have some more refrence to work off of. ------------------ "I am very good at hiding, so if you don't see me, that's where I am." Orc Outlaw, TES III Morrowind |
luke Member Posts: 311 From: I use your computer as my second Linux box Registered: 10-30-2005 |
Lol man, I know the pain with a crudy laptop (Mine is from 2002-3ish)! As for gothic architechture (the Church kind I presume, not that black all is gloom stuff =D) I would suggest searching wikipedia and google. ------------------ |
buddboy Member Posts: 2220 From: New Albany, Indiana, U.S. Registered: 10-08-2004 |
but if he googled it he'd get a bunch of that 'black all is gloom stuff'... lol... ------------------ |
CPUFreak91 Member Posts: 2337 From: Registered: 02-01-2005 |
quote: Not if he used the "architechture" (SP?) keyword. ------------------ |
crazyishone Member Posts: 1685 From: Registered: 08-25-2004 |
Ereon, you should look into building your own gaming PC. You can code most of the game on your laptop, then give it a graphics-tech overhaul whenever you have the opportunity. For about 1500-2000 dollars you can be set for a year or two, playing the best games. Even a card that supports SM 2 would be nice. Don't think about settling for one that supports only 1.1 though. :-p ------------------ |
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Ereon Member Posts: 1018 From: Ohio, United States Registered: 04-12-2005 |
Yeah, I'll have to do that, but it'll take some time to scrape together the cash, until them I'll just keep tinkering though. ------------------ "I am very good at hiding, so if you don't see me, that's where I am." Orc Outlaw, TES III Morrowind |
bennythebear Member Posts: 1225 From: kentucky,usa Registered: 12-13-2003 |
if all he needs as a box then he won't need near $2000. you don't need 300gb of storage, a dual core 3.0+ghz cpu, 2gb of ram, and a geforce 7*** pci-xpress to play the latest stuff. honestly a 2.0ghz p4 should run anything that's out(i'd go amd), 512mb of ram(most games), 1gb(all games), and i'm not sure on the video cards(what supporst what shaders, etc.) . get ebay parts, just make sure the sellers have good reps, the items are gaurenteed, and research the hardware to make sure it's what you want/need. of course i'm not a hardcore gamers so i don't really care if i can see a fly twitch 300 yards away on the leaf of a tree that's part of a forest. ------------------ proverbs 25:7 www.gfa.org - Gospel for Asia www.persecution.com - Voice of the Martyrs |
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crazyishone Member Posts: 1685 From: Registered: 08-25-2004 |
But...that fly might give me essential clues as to the location of the enemy! also, I don't spend 50 bucks to then have to turn all my settings down. :-p I hate life. ------------------ |
D-SIPL Moderator Posts: 1345 From: Maesteg, Wales Registered: 07-21-2001 |
quote: My advice... Get the game done, and focus now more on the gameplay aspect, create a reallly good immersive game, we all go and buy it because it's awesome, and you buy yourself a lovely new laptop ------------------ |
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Ereon Member Posts: 1018 From: Ohio, United States Registered: 04-12-2005 |
Lol, bravo, good idea  ------------------ "I am very good at hiding, so if you don't see me, that's where I am." Orc Outlaw, TES III Morrowind |
CoolJ Member Posts: 354 From: ny Registered: 07-11-2004 |
ok now im scared..I might be a replacing my desktop soon with something a little more portable. so if you *had* to use a laptop only, any of these vid cards being offered in them any good for latest graphics compat? my rational right now is limited to shared mem=BAD!, ded. mem=GOOD! or is it just best not to factor in great graphics capabilities on a laptop and save the $$$ |
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Ereon Member Posts: 1018 From: Ohio, United States Registered: 04-12-2005 |
You're right about the dedicated memory, just check up on the graphics card of the laptop you're going to buy and it should turn out all right. Just know what you want to use it for before you buy. ------------------ "I am very good at hiding, so if you don't see me, that's where I am." Orc Outlaw, TES III Morrowind |
Mack Administrator Posts: 2779 From: Registered: 01-20-2001 |
Build the game to push your notebook to the max and focus on a creative art style that'll hook people at first sight. Add fun gameplay and agressively push it and your set. |
dartsman Member Posts: 484 From: Queensland, Australia Registered: 03-16-2006 |
lol...
quote: old school == no shaders... man, I think you need to rethink that!! "Back in the old days" they did stuff in Assembler Why did it take you so long to realise that your laptop doesn't support shaders of any kind? You should have picked that up pretty quickly. I know my laptop doesn't support the _latest_ shaders, found that out at uni when I tried to test a shader from an example. I agree with ppl on the topic of getting the game done first. Graphics mean not much at all without the gameplay to back it up, sure some people will buy the thing on looks alone. But the main point with christian games are to get a point across, and hopefully minister to the unsaved... Game play will help out thousand times more to minister and get the right message across rather then graphics. You can still do stuff without shaders... lol, its not like you could only ever have some Quake 2 style game if you don't have shaders. Although they do add some extra look/feel to the game. Like for a game project I worked on, for the lighting we did alpha'd cones from the lights and then an alpha circle on the ground where the light would hit. Now that doesn't add much overhead at all, and added that little extra to it. If anyone has played hitman 2, they used a similar technique (especially in the sewers), just added an extra layer and slight scaling/rotation to give illusion of movement. A question, "invest in a physics engine"? do you need that physics engine? I don't actually know anything about your game. I doubt this will be an issue (only really in with QueryPerformanceCounter()/QueryPerformanceFrequency()), I've heard (could be wrong) that laptops can change their frequency when running, and that when doing timing (for time based movement) you normally only get the frequency once (at startup) and then use that to calculate the delta time (since last update). So timing methods on a laptop needs to be monitored... ------------------ [This message has been edited by dartsman (edited May 21, 2006).] |
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Ereon Member Posts: 1018 From: Ohio, United States Registered: 04-12-2005 |
Lol, I was just goofing with the "old school" thing. I didn't realise the problem with my laptop earlier because #1 I don't have alot of money to invest in games, and the selection that I did/do have to invest in is extremely limited because of the restrictions placed on content by my parents combined with the enhanced restrictions I try to place on myself. So, the net result is that I VERY rarely get to play the newest games, first because the game's content stinks (not gameplay, just things like language, blood, suggestive themes, cult, and such) and second because of money issues. The #2 reason is that, up until now, I had no clue what shaders were in the first place, or what they did, so I'm still a neophyte at them, what is possible with them, and alternatives to making similar effects. Given the fact that I didn't buy or play games with shaders in them, and when I did I didn't recognize that shaders (or lack of them in the case of games on my laptop) were responsible for the graphics in any way. So, it wasn't until I earnestly began testing and tinkering that I discovered the lack of compatability. As far as game first I agree with that, at least in theory, I don't have enough experience to agree or disagree with it in practice, but part of the fun and sense of accomplishment for me is making it have that finished and professional polish, or at least making that one little improvement here or there and just seeing that improvement in the game itself. If I just slap something together, (as I have sometimes in the past) or make something with too much emphasis on one particular part instead of a nice, even, finished product, it lacks that sense of accomplishment and most of my enjoyment goes down the tubes. On doing stuff without shaders I know its possible do cool stuff still, but there was just a part of me that REALLY wanted to do awesome stuff like parallax, per pixel shading, bloom filters, and normals mapping. I can still do some awesome stuff without it, cloth effects, reflective weapons, even some bumpmapping and lightmapping, but I was just really looking forward to some of the uber cool stuff shaders can do. On the physics engine the purpose for it really is just to simplify and professionalize the end product. The physics engine controls dust, flames, smoke, other things than just objects, and I have this one idea to use one feature for. They have cloth effects in the game that can actually allow you to rip and tears cloth. So the idea is to make the character's cloak/cape a cloth object, and then, as you fight, not only get the neat movement and such, but also make every near miss, dodge, and other such instances actually tear and rip the cloth. It's just little details like that, in addition to the fact that I haven't taken physics or the mathematics courses required to make my own physics engine yet, that have motivated me to even consider the purchase in the first place. ------------------ "I am very good at hiding, so if you don't see me, that's where I am." Orc Outlaw, TES III Morrowind |
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dartsman Member Posts: 484 From: Queensland, Australia Registered: 03-16-2006 |
hmm... sorry I misunderstood what you ment when you said "After numerous experiments and several weeks trying to get shaders to work in my game". Thought you meant you had been working for "several weeks trying to get shaders to work"... lol. Did you know: You don't need to "invest" heaps to make a game? You could create a game with $10, that $10 being on a Sound Creation program from one of those game discount bins. Grab Dev-C++, DirectX API, and away you go. Did you know: Before shaders, games were still cool? And actually seemed to have better game play. There is a trend which I have spotted with games. At the peak just before the graphics step up a notch (text to 2d, 2d to 3d, 3d into shaders), the game play is at it's peak. Then when new technology comes along say moving from 2d to 3d, the game play seems to drop. It's not all of the time, just the majority of it. Once people become more at home with the new technology they are able to concentrate on the game play, rather then spend too much time on graphics... Did you know: Small effects in the game do add a bit more look/feel to the game, but are also the ones sometimes most overlooked by the end player. The player most of the time knows now-days what effects are going on, and can point them out "oh look at that bloom". But can also be overlooked... That cloth example sounds awesome, I've written my own cloth/rope system (C++), which I'm working on a new version atm. It might be awesome to make the cloak/cape tear and rip, but what will you be sacrificing to get that? theres always a sacrifice when you add something extra to the game. My advice would be, list your game features (if you haven't already). what you would expect to be on the back of the box. "32 action packed missions", "Intense Game play", "more then 25 different monsters", etc. Concentrate on them, get them done, don't worry about enhancing them until you have those working. You'll find say once you have the game running and those 25 monsters (just as an example) that adding another 10 might be easy. This is sometimes ok, but how about just making an expansion pack with more monsters and some extra missions. ------------------ |
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Ereon Member Posts: 1018 From: Ohio, United States Registered: 04-12-2005 |
You don't have to invest heaps in games, but isn't it true that by investing some money you can both increase the quality of and decrease at least some of the amount of time and effort required to make a game? Yes, I did know that games were cool before shaders. As far as things that can be overlooked I'd rather not overlook them. It's like a movie, there are details on film sets usually that noone really ever notices and sometimes they don't even see, but they're still there because all of those little details add to the immersive quality of the film as a whole, even though the conscious mind may never fully register all of them. As far as sacrificing, I don't have to worry about shaders, so that will work as my "sacrifice" I think  . As far as features go I'm still working on that. It's difficult being the modeller, animator, texture maker, soundtrack composer, concept artist, sound engineer, ect ect. So it's taking me quite alot of time to get my feet under me (Things should speed up when summer comes and I don't have as much school). Thank you for your advice, here's a link to my old game thread so you can see what I had done on it(I'm recoding the engine though so all that work, except for the textures, is essentially not helpful). http://www.christiancoders.com/cgi-bin/ubb-cgi/postdisplay.cgi?forum=Forum5&topic=000096 ------------------ "I am very good at hiding, so if you don't see me, that's where I am." Orc Outlaw, TES III Morrowind |
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dartsman Member Posts: 484 From: Queensland, Australia Registered: 03-16-2006 |
yeah, it's true... you can increase productivity through the use of 3rd party engines etc... anywho, good luck with the project. wouldn't mind seeing some screenshots of it... ------------------ |
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Ereon Member Posts: 1018 From: Ohio, United States Registered: 04-12-2005 |
I'll post some as soon as I have them. I'm going to be doing some concept renders of the Great Library as soon as I get my laptop back. I'll post those as soon as I'm happy with them. ------------------ "I am very good at hiding, so if you don't see me, that's where I am." Orc Outlaw, TES III Morrowind |
Now that was fun