NashaENGINE particle demo

[chronozphere]

hi everyone

I've been a PGD member for some time now, but i never showed any WIP. Now i have something to show.... :)

I've been working on a 2D DirectX based game-engine which is almost finished now. I call it the "NashaENGINE" or "Nasha2D". At this time, i'm working on some Demo's and Testing app's to make sure everything works. When that is done, i will start making a game with it. I even might join the 2008 competition. :P

You can download my demo here:

NashaENGINE particle Demo V1.2 (http://necrodome.homeftp.net/zooi/Chronosphere/NashaENGINE%20particle%20demo%20v1.2.rar) (Thanx michiel... for hosting this file :razz:)

My demo shows 5 different effects. You can see the next one by pressing the spacebar. You also need to install openAL, which is included in th RAR. I should have remove the sound initialization code in this application, because it doesn't use any sound. :oops:

I like to know whether it runs well on other PC's, and at what FPSses. I would also like to hear your oppinion.

Can anyone test it for me? :razz:

Thanx a lot

[Robert Kosek]

Speeds, high/low:
Explosion: 180fps/145fps
Fire: 160fps/155fps
Fireworks: 163fps/145fps
Glow: 150fps/130fps
Travel: 143fps/132fps

Graphically they're all very nice. The fire might need a little help because flames don't, realistically anyway, spread out at the top--they narrow. Even bonfires have a smaller top area with wild "tongues" that can make it seem wide. That's really hard to do in 2d though, even in 3d it's a challenge, so the fire still looks good.

I'm not sure why the framerates are so volatile. Might just be some of my backgrounds. I actually had higher speeds when I returned the window to focus after writing the fpses here; so I had about 18 fireworks go at the same time at 160fps. The speed/load is unpredictable, but it doesn't seem to be the capabilities of the engine that do it.

Good work Chrono, I hope to show a WIP of mine some time soon too.

[Luuk van Venrooij]

Great effects and runs great. What kind of game are you planning to make?

[chronozphere]

Thanx :D



The fire might need a little help because flames don't, realistically anyway, spread out at the top--they narrow.

Okay... i was quite satisfied with the fire, but it isn't very realistic yet. Maybe increasing my "scalespeed" would help. Or spreading the particles by allowing them to move in more different directions.



I'm not sure why the framerates are so volatile. Might just be some of my backgrounds. I actually had higher speeds when I returned the window to focus after writing the fpses here; so I had about 18 fireworks go at the same time at 160fps.

I dont know why the FPS is volatile. It might be because i use the OnIdle event for rendering. I know about the huge bursts of particles when one returns to the window. It's a little problem in my timer class, but i can fix it. Maybe the FPS is higher when you return, because the screen is black for the first second, because all old particles have died. FPS should drop when the particles are all visible.

@Luuk van Venrooij: Thanx :)... I have some idea's. I think it's gonna be a nice dogfight game. You control a vehicle and you have to fight others deep under the ground in various caves and tunnels. I hope such idea's fit in the compo theme for 2008. :?

EDIT: Whooohoo Post 400 :D

[Traveler]

Speeds, high/low (gf8800 gts):
Explosion: 5500fps/2500fps
Fire: 3200fps/2500fps
Fireworks: 6000fps/1300fps
Glow: 4500fps/3000fps
Travel: 1650fps/1200fps

Quite nice! A bit weird though that the travelling through galaxy demo demands the most from the gpu.

[chronozphere]

Yeah.. i think that's because most of the screen is being used for rendering. Those purple "starfield glow particles" are rather big, and a lot of framebuffer/Z-Buffer acces is needed to render them, compared to the other effects. :)

And i must say... your hardware can run it at amazing speeds... :o

[WILL]

Hey, some pretty sweet visual effects going on there!

I like the cool explosion and personal favorite is the fireworks. Would love to see what you can do with more particles and patterns there. :D

[Reiter]

Particlesproj

Initilizing graphics module failed.

After "OK" and the main form popping up, on closing I get


Particlesproj

Access violation ........

WinXP, SP2, ATI Radeon 9600, recent drivers.

[chronozphere]

Hi Reiter.

Can you send/show me the logfile. It explains in more detail what went wrong. :)

Thanx

EDIT: I did a quick analysis, and i'm almost certain which line did raise the AV. The remaining problem is, finding out why your videohardware didn't work with my application. :?

[Reiter]

Hi there!

Well, here the log file (btw. did you notice that in the provided package already exists an error.log?). However, here my log after errors:



MSG: ..:: NashaENGINE log-file ::..

MSG: Initializing NashaENGINE...
MSG: Enumerating Sound devices...
MSG: -- Sounddevice: Generic Hardware
MSG: -- Sounddevice: Generic Software
MSG: 2 sound-devices enumerated!

MSG: Initializing Graphics....
MSG: Checking for hardware acceleration....
MSG: --> A hardware accelerated device was found!
MSG: Checking hardware capabilities...
MSG: Validating display mode...
MSG: Creating device....
DXERR: --> ERROR_NOT_READY & DIERR_NOTINITIALIZED
--> Direct3d-Device could not be initialized.

MSG: Terminating....
MSG: ..:: Logger terminated::..


If you don't know a solution I assume the error could be the same error which prevents me from gaming some usual other (commercial) games which on loading cause a similar problem. This seems to be a specific problem of ATI Radeon 9600 series and DX. Possibly older versions of Catalyst (driver software for graphic card) may solve this. Nobody actually knows.

[chronozphere]

. did you notice that in the provided package already exists an error.log?


yes i did.. i forgot to delete it before RARring the whole thing. "error.log" is infact a normal log file and is always generated, even when the app runs without problems. :)

I'm afraid i can't help you with this. IDirect3D.CreateDevice returns ERROR_NOT_READY, which might indicate serious hardware failure (But i'm sure you can blame the drivers in this case). Are there ANY DirectX games that do work on your PC?? And what about OpenGL?

I hope you will find a sollution for this in the future! Bad drivers can be a bitch sometimes. :x

[Reiter]

Are there ANY DirectX games that do work on your PC?? And what about OpenGL?

About OpenGL I am sure it works in many cases. About DX... well... I really don't know when I carefully think about it. Two commercial games where I am sure they use DX fail to load. Most open source games work and since they in many cases avoid DX for good reasons you could be right that no DX game is working anymore. (Btw. since I updated my oldy driver from 2003 to completly brand-new 2007 driver :roll: ... never touch a running system :!: )