PGD Annual 2007 - Questions to Sascha Willems

**savage** · 18-02-2007, 06:55 PM

I agree, as long as the questions about Newton are made public, then I don't think there can be any question as to the legality of a Judge helping out.

**Huehnerschaender** · 18-02-2007, 08:26 PM

This sounds fine to me...

Right now I don't need any help. I was able to solve most of my problems by trial and error and reading the SDK.

It was just some kind of preventive question, if I get totally stuck on something...

Thanks for the answers so far.

Greetings,
Dirk

**Sascha Willems** · 19-02-2007, 10:54 AM

Originally Posted by 3_of_8

You said I shouldn't use GetTickCount... Well, actually I'm using SDL_GetTicks(). QueryPerformanceCounter wouldn't work as it's intended to bei platform independent.

As I said you should use a high-precision timer and QPC is the one for windows. But I'm sure there is also one for linux, so maybe it would be best to use compiler directives to do timing with the high precision timer for the approprite OS. Though I'm not totally sure if SDL_GetTicks isn't already doing that.

Originally Posted by H?ºhnersch?§nder

Am I allowed to ask him questions concerning Newton Game Dynamics?

Well, Savage already said it : If you have any questions ask them public, either over here or at the newton forums (though I visit PGD more often). Just make it public somehow and refrain from PM'ing me, as I won't answer any PMs during the contest regarding to contest entries cause that wouldn't be fair to the other entrants.

**IlovePascal** · 02-04-2007, 06:56 AM

Hey there, I know I have no right to complain about the judging in the competition, and it is in no way what i want to do.

I would like to ask, however, why is it that you did not give me points for the second goal ('Update your Readme.txt files explaining more about your entry's gameplay and how it will bring together all 2+ genre types into your game').
I know I did not implement my second genre yet, but I did write about how it will be put together and the other judges did give me those points.

Thank you for your patience... (nt tht I care about 5 pts!)

**Huehnerschaender** · 05-04-2007, 08:44 AM

Hi Sascha,

in your comments to my stage 3 entry you mentioned that the buttons in cannon mode did not work properly.

Can you please tell me what exactly did not work? Did the collision seem to be misplaced? Did you change the resolution (Did you set a 16/10 resolution)? I tried several settings here and I cannot find anything bad with button collision. But I have no possibility to test 16/10 resolutions. It's working well here. So I need your help to find this bug

I think I "repaired" the broken physics. Driving bulldozer is smooth now. But I still need to find a way to control newtons calculations framerate-independend. The way 3_of_8 posted in his MechaChess Thread caused the problems you have seen in stage3 entry.
It's exactly the behaviour I posted there as one of my answers... if the PC is not fast enough to render the scene with a good framerate, the calculations of newton will punish the CPU, resulting in bigger and bigger lags each frame. Thats why Christina got performance problems with this version.

**jdarling** · 05-04-2007, 02:45 PM

Originally Posted by Huehnerschaender

But I have no possibility to test 16/10 resolutions.

Dirk, why can't you test 16/10? Just run the game in windowed mode and force the w/h to fit 16/10 standards within your max screen res. This is what I've done the few times I couldn't get to a widescreen.

**WILL** · 05-04-2007, 03:08 PM

Window mode runs much slower than fullscreen. This might be more of a pain in the arse then helpful for debugging, depending on his system's performance capabilities. :?

However it might be worth a try if he has a high-end system.

**Sascha Willems** · 05-04-2007, 03:16 PM

I tried the game in windowed mode and not in 16:10 fullscreen. But after looking at it again it might be more of a problem with an irritating cursor. In artillery mode your cursor looks like a steering wheel and from it's look the cursor's center should be in the center of the texture but somehow that's not the case so the buttons feel like being offset. Dunno if it's the cursor or a problem with the UI, but maybe dump that cursor for a cursor where the user is actually able to tell where the hit point is.

**Huehnerschaender** · 05-04-2007, 04:51 PM

Ah! thank you very much for this "little but big" hint! You had the wrong cursor.... There is a bug which sometimes chooses the wrong cursor. The steering wheel is for the normal view only. When cursor moves over a steerable vehicle/item it should change to the wheel-cursor (the doubleclick feature to go into steer mode is not finished yet). But in the cannon UI you should have the arrow cursor, which has its clickpoint to the upper left corner... with the wrong cursor you also have the clickpoint upper left corner, but the graphic does not point to that click point. Now I understand your problems. Thanks. This will be fixed...

And thanks for the simple "trick" to test 16/10... I wonder why I did not had this idea myself

And Will, I always run the games in windowed mode here. I wonder how you debug your games in fullscreen?! When I try this (with my DirectX apps) and the game/app stops due to an error, I mostly have no chance to get back to the IDE... In nearly all cases I have to kill the game or BDS itself by the taskmanager.

And yes, my system is able to run games smooth in windowed mode (X1600 Pro, Athlon 64 4000, 1 GB RAM)

Greetings,
Dirk