Thanks for the reply.

>I moved from DelphiX to Asphyre about four months ago. And until now I can only say >that it was a very very good decision. If you want to create 2D games using hardware >acceleration, Asphyre is the best choice I know, because its made for exactly this >purpose.

It certainly does look very good.

>Asphyre is designed to use the hardware acceleration. If you want to use software >renderer, you code a fallback-function to use software mode if hardware acceleration is >not present. Hardware mode needs DirectX 9.0c to be installed. Software mode is >available for DirectX 7 and 8 (as far as I know)

This is one of my major hesitations. It?¢_Ts great to have the speed if supported but if my game is a pretty simple scrolling 2d tiled platform game it?¢_Ts likely to appeal to people with less sophisticated graphics cards.

Under software mode it?¢_Ts not going to scroll as smoothly as if I?¢_Td written it in DelphiX then I would have thought.

You?¢_Tll have to excuse my ignorance, but can it automatically detect hardware acceleration and fall back if it can?¢_Tt find it? Is that easy to implement?

>Yes, Asphyre.dll has to be delivered to make your games running properly. But >lifepower announced that he is working on a new version wich needs the DLL anymore.
>As far as I know, you can code commercial products without falling into license >payment or something. Asphyre is freeware. I remember lifepower said somewhere, that >he would like the author to give credit, for example a sentence on title screen saying >"powered by Asphyre".

I?¢_Td certainly need to clarify that. I love what I see but I will want to be able to sell my product unrestricted if possible.

>Do you have actual version of Asphyre? There is a demo game called Hasteroids >available (including sources) which is the best point to start...
>
>Which of the demo sources were not compilable? I had no problems using Delphi 7.

I have Delphi 7 Enterprise and Asphyre installed. I can compile and run :-
Combustion, Landscape, Plasma, Primitives

But I get a compile error with VScreenDemo,
?¢_oThere is no overloaded version of AlignedOut that can be used with these arguments:?¢__
Line 164: ?¢_oAlignedOut('Move mouse here!', 0, 0, taCenter, taCenter, $FFFFFFFF);?¢__
(and elsewhere)

With AsciDemo it informs me it can?¢_Tt find ?¢_orgb-windowed.inc?¢__

With Hasteroids it can?¢_Tt find ?¢_oDynamic_bass?¢__ but I?¢_Tm assuming that?¢_Ts because I haven?¢_Tt installed the sound system.

I will only want to play WAVs in my own game, again because of the commercial aspect.

Since you?¢_Tve recently moved over from DelphiX, can you clarify a couple of points for me?

a) DelphiX has one timer for the game loop. I normally have this running at maximum speed and adjust all my sprite movements accordingly. Is this still easy to do with Asphyre? I notice it?¢_Ts timer appears to have a render and process procedures.
Can I easily stick to my old way?

b) It seems keen on using it?¢_Ts vtDB component for storing data, images etc. I?¢_Td rather control all that myself. Is it easy enough to load my own bitmaps from streams? I?¢_Tve only just started looking but I can?¢_Tt see how to load an image from a stream.

c) The easy of created tiled background in DelphiX is great. Is something similar available in Asphyre?

Are there any other instructions for Asphyre anywhere?

Anyway, thanks for your help. I?¢_Tm getting more and more keen with it based on what I?¢_Tve seen so far.

Cheers,

Steven