I've just made a QBasic 1.1 game... That is, I haven't yet compiled it. Its (at the moment) wireframe 3D (I will make it filled polygons once I recode it for DirectX... I mean DirectQB), and runs at a fine speed on my new computer...
Only problem is I have absolutly no idea how it will run on any other machine (<2Ghz), so how fast are the computers you run QB on? Will it be an issue if the game doesn't work on less-then-new computers? Would anyone (with slower computers) like to beta test a walk around wireframe version for speed?
matt
850mhz, win 98
I can test it if you want
Thanks for the Prompt reply, I'll upload it on my page (
http://www.geocities.com/matt2jones) and stick it in the downloads section under 3D DEMO. Its just a single .bas source file uncompiled, so run it through QB (obviously)...
Its designed so that the frame rate won't go above 10 fps, on my machine during the most polygon & trigonometric intensive parts the frame rate falls to 4, which is okay, but if it falls below three or two it would be baaad...
Of course it'll speed up when I compile it and use DQB, but I'd like to know how much faster I need to optimise the calculations.
The frame rate is the figure center screen on the third row from the top btw.
thanks again
matt
Average 7 to 10 FPS
But that's waay less then playable, annoyingly slow...
Needs atleast 25-30 to look nice... hope you can make it =)
And try to add textures, I have a triangle fill routine if you want.
I, personally, would go the uGL or Rellib route. If not, create lookup tables, which would bring the speed up greatly.
I noticed that your sin and cos lookaround parts where kinda messed up.....im working on that rightr now, coz i got nothing better to do, except release my 3d stuff when complete, but meh - pay no attention to me.....
Try using SCREEN 9,,1,0 .......i did....decreased the FPS, but everything looked good....[not that it looks horrible]
Oz~
I got 9-10 FPS
1600MHz, WinXP
got a cool 30FPS on a 2.8GHz P4
I'll be creating lookup tables anyway, along with converting it to a lib (I'm familiar with DQB, thats why I said that one, but I'll check out uGL and relib.
I don't like using screen 9, out of habit, cause it fucks up on my 486 (windows 3.1), so if I want QB pageflipping I use 320x200x16. But seeing as its only 8 colours, I could use a hires mode no problem, but that will come with the library.
I don't know how you got 30FPS, because I set the drawscreen sub to only be called every tenth of a second, if the calculations took more then .1 of second the framerate will fall (and down will come engine, game and all... sorry), but I don't know how it could go above 10FPS?
Is my timer delay fucked?
I wrote a qb triangle fill rountine (using line), but it was too slow, that's why I'm looking for a library one, and I've never gotten textures to work before, so If I was to try and impliment them the game would probably never be finished...
And as far as the lookaround bits go...
don't confuse the TERRIBLE collision detecting system with the lookaround code (RotateY sub), most of the sin and cos shit is a REALLY sloppy collision detecting method based on raycasters and far too many if statements... I doubt I'll improve the system, cause it works now, and it could fuck up royally if I try to change anything.
That's a long reply... Anyway -
Thanks for all the help/suggestions guys, Hopefully this will be finished soon, I'll credit you all as beta testers if you want,
Thanks again
Matt
Oh.....i fogot:
Get a ASM zSort routine.......it'll work much, much faster!
Oz~
Actaully, I've been wondering about that
Do you know anything about zSorting? I've never really been able to do it before, I sorta came up with that idea on the spur of the moment, I don't know if its the most effeciant way of doing it or anything... What can you tell me?
Also:
I added in lookup tables just there, and it all works much faster, thanks for the suggestion, and I removed the .1 drawscreen call, now it runs at 15 - 25 fps.
matt