Page 1 of 5 123 ... LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 46

Thread: Lazarus - Game Developers Edition

  1. #1
    Co-Founder / PGD Elder WILL's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2003
    Location
    Canada
    Posts
    6,107
    Blog Entries
    25

    Lazarus - Game Developers Edition

    It's been talked about over and over, but it seems that now we're going to see it finally come to light. The idea... Lazarus, the Game Developers Edition.

    I was talking with Vincent Snijders on IRC not too long ago and I brought up the PGD Annual.
    <__WILL__> PGD Annual is about to start, you as excited as I am?
    <fpcfan> no :-)
    ...to be fair, I don't think it was even possible anyhow.

    Well after a bit of blabbing, we both came up with an idea for a new distro made specifically with the PGD Annual in mind. Most people that use Laz or even just FPC for game development don't really have a 'full suite' of tools and/or libs specifically for game development.

    We hope to end this by making a special edition that will suit not only say GLScene users, but JEDI-SDL, DelphiX, Omega, Asphyre, DirectX, Lua, OpenGL, DirectX9/10, Newton and OpenAL users and so on. You can sort of think of it as the first all-inclusive out of the box edition of Lazarus that we all have been waiting for. :thumbup:

    I've created a page on the Lazarus Wiki for the planned list of included features. We'll be pulling participation from as many people as we can to make it happen.


    What I'd really like to know though is what do you think would be the best set of standard headers/libraries to use considering max supported platforms [size=9px](minus the DirectX-based libs)[/size] stability, completeness and compatibility...


    See the Lazarus Wiki page on the new edition for more information: Lazarus - Game Developers Edition
    Jason McMillen
    Pascal Game Development
    Co-Founder





  2. #2

    Lazarus - Game Developers Edition

    That all sounds fantastic. One other suggestion would be to include the Open Dynamics Engine. There are some Delphi headers here. This would provide an alternative physics engine as an option.

    I also think the indy components should be in there initially instead as an addition as, having used them with Delphi in the past, I've found them quite useful.

    Cross-compilation from any platform to any platform would be a major benefit I would think.

    Just my AUD$0.02, I know it's not worth much :roll:

  3. #3
    Co-Founder / PGD Elder WILL's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2003
    Location
    Canada
    Posts
    6,107
    Blog Entries
    25

    Lazarus - Game Developers Edition

    Quote Originally Posted by Zenophran
    That all sounds fantastic. One other suggestion would be to include the Open Dynamics Engine. There are some Delphi headers here. This would provide an alternative physics engine as an option.
    Alright, sounds ok to me. I had though of this one, but was unsure as it seems that support for it has gotten somewhat lax in recent years. If nothing else perhaps it can be included as legacy?

    http://www.hypeskeptic.com/Mattias/DelphiODE/

    Quote Originally Posted by Zenophran
    I also think the indy components should be in there initially instead as an addition as, having used them with Delphi in the past, I've found them quite useful.
    Yeah, I have to agree, however the problem surrounding Indy is that the Indy guys are still trying to port it to Lazarus themselves. At least this is how I understand it.

    [size=9px](http://www.indyproject.org/Sockets/fpc/index.aspx)[/size]

    Perhaps with a little bit more help both teams needs can be fulfilled.

    Quote Originally Posted by Zenophran
    Cross-compilation from any platform to any platform would be a major benefit I would think.
    I agree. However complications with acquiring needed libraries [size=9px](legally in some cases)[/size] make it unable to provide this part out of the box. At least on Windows. On Linux or even Mac OS X (I think it would be a bit easier) it isn't as so hard to provide a pre-packaged ability to cross-compile for Win32/64, as hard to get libraries are not needed in this case.

    This is still a big issue to overcome yet.

    Quote Originally Posted by Zenophran
    Just my AUD$0.02, I know it's not worth much :roll:
    I'm Canadian. I know what you mean.


    Here a question primed for debate, whats the best OpenGL headers to use? [size=9px](outside of JEDI-SDL's included copy which will be kept and used for JEDI-SDL created projects specifically)[/size]

    I also am unsure of what OpenAL headers to use. OpenAL.org themselves point to noeska's headers, but I don't know how cross-platform compatible they are and I want to hear what others feel about this before I make it official.
    Jason McMillen
    Pascal Game Development
    Co-Founder





  4. #4
    Legendary Member cairnswm's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2002
    Location
    Randburg, South Africa
    Posts
    1,537

    Lazarus - Game Developers Edition

    You are welcome to include Fantasy Land as a cross platform compatable project.

    Just my RSA R1.00 - to make it about equal to the mighty AU$ and CAN$ few cents!
    William Cairns
    My Games: http://www.cairnsgames.co.za (Currently very inactive)
    MyOnline Games: http://TheGameDeveloper.co.za (Currently very inactive)

  5. #5

    Lazarus - Game Developers Edition

    Quote Originally Posted by WILL
    Quote Originally Posted by Zenophran
    Cross-compilation from any platform to any platform would be a major benefit I would think.
    I agree. However complications with acquiring needed libraries [size=9px](legally in some cases)[/size] make it unable to provide this part out of the box. At least on Windows. On Linux or even Mac OS X (I think it would be a bit easier) it isn't as so hard to provide a pre-packaged ability to cross-compile for Win32/64, as hard to get libraries are not needed in this case.

    This is still a big issue to overcome yet.
    Free Pascal 2.2 will be big step into the direction of transparant cross-compilation because of the internal linker. This means the compiler can create executables for a certain platform independend on what host platform it is running. It is just implemented for COFF platforms at this time, i.e. you can create Win32 executables under Linux, but the rest will surely be coming. As nobody uses 10 platforms, easy cross compilation will be a big step into the direction of multi-platform software.

  6. #6

    Lazarus - Game Developers Edition

    IMHO, the biggest stumbling block for cross compilation is the fact that on *nix the linked to libraries are needed, not the fact that it has to be done with an external linker.

    Cross compiling to windows was easy (no need for kernel32.dll during linking) and has become easier because of the internal linker (no need to distribute an external linker).

  7. #7

    Lazarus - Game Developers Edition

    The solution is to make the internal linker not to require the libraries present on the system. I don't think there is any information in the libraries the linker needs to create the executable.

    Also, the FPC spirit has always been "remove the libraries". Now that is a quite hard with Lazarus using GTK and most games using SDL, but if the wish is there it can be done: both Pascal widget sets (lptk, MSE) and Pascal game libraries (PTCPas) already exist.

  8. #8

    Lazarus - Game Developers Edition

    [quote="dmantione"]The solution is to make the internal ]

    I would love to see that happen, but I thought that was impossible, because the linker needed the binary offsets in *nix and the loader doesn't link by name as it does on windows.

  9. #9

    Lazarus - Game Developers Edition

    Quote Originally Posted by dmantione
    Also, the FPC spirit has always been "remove the libraries". Now that is a quite hard with Lazarus using GTK and most games using SDL, but if the wish is there it can be done: both Pascal widget sets (lptk, MSE) and Pascal game libraries (PTCPas) already exist.
    I only know MSE well enough to comment, but even that uses external libraries, viz. X.

  10. #10

    Lazarus - Game Developers Edition

    Sure, they do, but I wanted to say about 75% of the obstacle has been taken away.

Page 1 of 5 123 ... LastLast

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •