DelphiX > Asphyre

[Steven]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply.

Hi Steven,

seems that you don't have the actual release of Asphyre. The VScreen demo runs well in latest version. There was a bug in definition of taCenter which is already defined through Delphis units itself. Lifepower renamed it to taMiddle in the latest version, this tells me you are not up to date with Asphyre.

I downloaded it from http://turbo.gamedev.net/asphyre.asp

As far as I know the Hasteroids demo has an exe included, so you can take a look of what the demo does. To compile it you have to install the bass system, which is free to download (but not free to use commercial).

Yes, but it would be nice to compile so I can make changes and learn like that. So I'll give it a go.

I'd still like to know if there are any restrictions on using Asphyre in a commercial game though.

The Ascii-demo is not of much importance to you if you want to create games. It's an addon lifepower wrote to make graphical demos in Ascii-mode. The renderer will convert bitmap graphics (and animations) to Ascii-character colored graphics. Only makes sense for demos (which was lifepowers intention).

Okay, thanks.

Asphyre itself has no sound system available (yet). I remember lifepower mentioned a possible sound system in the future. So you have to use other units or code your own. Wav-playing should be quite simple, though.

Yes, I think so.

To find out if hardware acceleration is available I guess it's only 2 or 3 lines of code, so I don't see a problem there. Just try to initialize Asphyre using hardware and if an exception occurs use software mode.
But be warned: Software mode is quite slow. You would need a fast machine to obtain good fps-results.

Yes, I understand software emulation would be very slow.

Asphyre has only one timer, too. But IMO Asphyres timer is more powerful. Take a look at the demo sources to find out the difference of the three timermodes. I am not sure, but I think the timer is already documented in the helpfile -> take a look at it.

Look at the help file? Are you mad? :-)

Okay, I will.

I myself use VTDB. But I know that it is possible to load bitmaps from file. I just took a look at images-component, it does not have a procedure to load bitmaps from streams, but hey, the whole system has source code included, so if you need loading from stream, it should not be difficult, since you already have the code for function loadfromfile and so you know how Asphyre needs images to be added.

You're right of course, I'll have to look into that if I decide to start using it.

What exactly do you mean? I never used tiled backgrounds in DelhiX, but I use tiled background in my project for dogfight compo. Had no problems with it. Is there a component in DelphiX to create tiled background? :?:

Only that DelphiX had a nice background sprite class that allowed you to tile images easily. You give it an image containing the tiles and then you can refer to them with tilebackground.chips[x,y] etc. You can then just position the tiled background where ever you like to scroll it around.

Unfortunately I don't know any sources or instructions how to use Asphyre and the documentation is not finished yet. It is not easy to find exactly what you need, but I found it not too difficult. Take a good look at the demos. How is this done, how is that done. Then experiment with it. That's what I did and now I am able to write games with Asphyre...

Anything else I can do for you?

I'm sure I'll have questions if I decide to go ahead!. Glad to know there are a few people here, looked quiet.

Have you had any issues with Asphyre so far? I noticed it didn't like me minimising and restoring one of the demos, nor ALT-TAB at one point. Although it might have been a one off.

I really appreciate the reply anyway, many thanks.


Steven