Testers Needed - JumpStart and Tank Brigade

[jdarling]

For a while now I've been working on re-writing JumpStart and its demo applications. The new version is almost complete (still needs sound libraries and a few other minor tweaks) and I'd like to get some UT (User Testing) and stats as far as how well everything runs. I'm not in a position to build the Mac and Linux versions right now, so its only windows. Soon though the Mac and Linux version will also be placed online.

Ok enough random rambles. If you would download http://www.eonclash.com/JumpStart/FPC/TankBrigade.zip and let me know how well it runs. Right now there are no enimies or any real smarts behind it, soon as I know that the FPS is holding up and the thing seems stable I'll start building the demo out even more.

[Traveler]

I've tested your game for a bit, and on a first glance, I think it worked like it should. I can move around and shoot. Collisions work okay too. One minor thing might perhaps be the fact that your bullets explode inside the walls, but only if you're really close to them. Not that big a deal, but I thought I point it out anyway.

I was not too impressed by the fps though. ~43fps does seem a bit low to me. However, (saving the worst for last :)) I also tested your game fullscreen and I'm afraid that didn't go well at all. As soon as the resolution changed, the whole thing slowed down to a mere crawl. I couldn't see fps, but i'd be surprised if it was higher than 1 or 2 fps. Definitely a thing to look into. :)

Other than that, I think you're off to a good start.

[jdarling]

Hey Travler thanks for taking a look at it. There are currently NO Optimizations in place. Its quite litterally rendering everything every frame, so I'm impressed with 43 in windowed mode :).

I've seen the same thing in full screen from time to time. Oddly enough it seems that SDL runs slower in full screen mode then in windowed mode (no idea as to why, maybe scaling).

The bullets in the walls is me forgetting to reset the position on collision :(. Ah well little things.

This is going to be a demo app for the engine when I'm done, not a true game. So some things will be left out. The real game will be CoF from the PGD Compo :). Yep I plan on finishing it, just had to get the engine more stable in order to do it.

If you want to see the FPS in all screens you can open Game.lua and add font:TextOut(0, 0, 'FPS: '..FPS) at the end of the OnRender function. Case is important, so here is the actual change:



require('StateManager')
require('ClassSupport')
require('Graphics')
require('GameSprite')
require('Splash')
require('Fonts')
require('MenuHandler')
require('PlayGame')

-- We plan on running the game at 800x600 full 32bit graphics and by default in windowed mode
FullScreen = false
SetVideoMode( 800, 600, 32, FullScreen)

function TestKeys()
if IsKeyDown(KEY_ESCAPE) then
SetMainMenu()
end
end

-- Render the scene
function OnRender(FrameTime, FPS, Key)
SetCaption('JumpStart - Tank Brigade (FPS: '..FPS..')')
TestKeys()
if GameStates.CurrentState ~= nil then
GameStates.CurrentState(FrameTime, FPS, Key)
end
font:TextOut(0, 0, 'FPS: '..FPS)
end

[Traveler]

I've made the modifcations to the file. My estimates where right though, not more than 2 fps :wink:

[jdarling]

I've updated the game files so that now Tank Brigade is a full game start to finish. Granted that its not a very fun game, but it does have end screens and player death.

I am now on to optimizing the rendering engine to try and get the frame rate up from where it is now. This entiles quite a bit of changes, but I will be releasing interms as they become stable to see if I can fix the problems that currently exist.

I'd still be interested in getting some feedback on how well the game runs on different PC's.

Same download link as above :)

[tanffn]

Tested your game and it runs fine, the only major is as Traveler said the FPS is low.

One of the levels was “completed” even thought I didn’t destroy all tanks.

[jdarling]

Hmm.. You shouldn't be able to complete the level if you haven't killed all the tanks. But then again the tanks can kill each other, so this may have happend while you were attacted to something else going on in the game. I haven't had it happen otherwise :)

[Robert Kosek]

129FPS in windowed mode, and a very choppy 12FPS-18FPS in fullscreen mode. Easy to win in windowed since it's fast enough. ;)

Pretty well done.

[jdarling]

Wow robert, I'm overly impressed by your frame rate. What type of hardware are you running on? As everything I've tried the demo on thus far hasn't even come close to that number.

[Robert Kosek]

Actually, right now it's a generation old. But I do have the latest drivers. :D

My card: Radeon 9800 XT 256MB (http://www.ati.com/products/radeon9800/radeon9800pro/compare.html) (leftmost card for statistics)
Drivers: Catalyst 6.9
DirectX: 9.0c

It'll hit pretty high frame rates most days, but anything of the newer games kinda top out at 30fps with medium detail. It's a shame that a 7600GS will produce 50% more rendering pipelines for only $100... since at the top it cost me almost $350 a few years back. And it was hard to save up for.

[jdarling]

Well that explains a few things. Still its odd that changing over to windib seems to fix alot of problems with full screen speed (see my other thread in JEDI-SDL). Now to just figure out when and what is better.

[jdarling]

Well, I've updated the package yet again. New to this version is the ability to have a startup script that allows you to place SDL_putenv and SDL_getenv (as well as a few other minor tweaks not documented yet). Changes to the backend code to speed up the rendering minorly (still haven't start hard core optimizations and won't until all basic functionality are in place). As well as removing the caption setting code from the scripts rendering loop (this actually gained quite a few CPS, seems that setting the caption is quite slow).

One last noteable change, I've placed the FPS on the screen at all times. Personally using the GDI rendering context took me from an average of 5 FPS full screen to 50 FPS full screen. Considering I'm running this on a crap P2 lalptop with a generic IBM video card I'd say thats an improvement.

Next comes Audio, then Linux support, then optimizations. Then I can finally start working on Chronicals of Faelen again and get it built out. Until then I will be working up Demos and Test Cases for the new version of the engine and tweaking the heck out of it.

Download: http://www.eonclash.com/JumpStart/FPC/TankBrigade.zip


Oh, and before WILL asks; Yes I still plan on having a tool to take 3D models and convert them into Sprites. It will be part of the packages, and easily useable for other applications. Its just pretty low on the totem poll of features to implment.