Bundling Stripped Java 1.5 + Molebox?

Engines, Libraries and Tools Tools Discussion
#1

I hope what I’m asking for isn’t wrong. I’ve read many, many posts on this topic already, so I have an idea of the controversy. Anyway I am making a game where I can go the new JET 4.0 or try to “condense” the JRE. JET is now Java 1.5 certified so thats good, but the final install will be about 20+ megs. I want to experiment with the Java 1.5 JRE to get the game at least half-size. I was wondering if there was a solid tutorial (step by step) on where/how/which parts to take out and what must be left in. I know about “rt.jar” but is there anything else? Also specific Molebox settings to get it working properly. It didn’t seem like Molebox could put any folders, so how do I add all those JRE subfolders?

My game is all software rendered, with 3rd party Joystick (JStick I think) and GAGETimer. It goes fullscreen and windowed (needs AWT?).

Any help or advice is appreciated. Thanks!

#2

You would save alot of space if you ditch AWT and use LWJGL instead. The only problem is that it will require OpenLG drivers to run a software rendered game.

#3

I managed to squeeze the JRE into 1.4MB (floppy!! ;D) after compressing. It was still able to launch a LWJGL 3d-engine. Just for fun.

Can’t use it, until I find money somewhere to buy MoleBox.

But you really have to get rid of AWT/Swing in your game to squeeze the last air out of the JRE, don’t forget to buy MoleBox. Molebox molebox molebox. grrr.

#4

Is there an un-moleboxed, stripped JRE game out there where I can pry into. Also can someone post instructions on exactly what to take out and leave in, and anything else that needs to be known to do it?

#5

The game I am working on has a trimmed down JRE and it’s not moleboxed (yet).

You can download it here: here

Under the install directory you will fined it in java\jre

Edit: It’s not 1.5 though, it’s 1.4.2.

Warning though: I have been told this breaks the license agreement, so it won’t be able to stay this way.

#6

Thanks for the info. Its hard to know what to take out of the JAR file. Nice game!

#7

You can automate that process making smart use of certain java.exe arguments… :wink: Just check out which options there are, and pick the one you think will give you the right information :-X

#8

I took out almost everything outside of java.lang, java.net, and java.io - and I specially left in RMI too which is useful for so many things. The way I did it was run the game with verbose class load on, and then painstakingly went through rt.jar removing all the classes that weren’t in the list it printed out.

Cas :slight_smile:

#9

Really?

I parsed output of the -verbose:class argument, made an app that reads rt.jar, and stores all ‘matches’ from the parsed output in new_rt.jar

Job done in 8 seconds.

#10

Okay the verbose:class will definitely work out, so thats how its done! And the automated program to read the verbose:class output file, sounds like something to make public domain, hint hint. :wink:

#11

make sure you add quite a few packages, which are loaded before it starts printing to screen

such as

sun.misc
java.lang
java.lang.reflect
java.util

find out by trial and error.

#12

Ahh, there’s a bit more to it than that… there were some extra classes required by different locales which you don’t pick up doing it that way - so bang! It crashes in a Spanish locale. And I wanted a VM I could reuse a bit without having to do it for every game (at the expense of a few hundred kb) with a few things I didn’t always directly use.

Cas :slight_smile: