I’m using Java 6 update 13 which isn’t all that old.
Also, after checking more carefully, CPU use is actually at around 55% for low quality and up to 70% at high quality. So it is using two threads properly.
Some systems (especially AGP based ones) suffer tremendously from this “bug”: http://bugs.sun.com/view_bug.do?bug_id=6652116. One of my Athlon X2 based systems does so. Could be a problem in your case too, so that the actual rendering may be quite fast but copying the results to the screen is dog slow.
My crappy PC under Mandriva Linux 2007, AMD Sempron 2600+, 2 GB DDRAM.
Something along these lines wouldn’t surprise me, and it would explain why the cpus aren’t under too much load. Probably not exactly this bug though, since I’ve got onboard graphics which will copy from main memory to main memory when drawing to screen.
My brother and I loved playing this game (IronMan RunOut?? ) together. hmm… this may be my inspiration for the next 4k comp 
re performance:
E8400 @ 3Ghz win XP Java 1.6.0_13
High 75 fps
Low 170 fps
Worked surprisingly well, considering this laptop ain’t exactly a speed demon… This will turn into a fun game, I’m sure.
Low quality: FPS varies between 31 - 49.
High quality: FPS varies between 15 - 21.
PC: Acer Extensa 5220, Celeron 540 @ 1.86 GHz, 2 GB of RAM. Windows 7 32-bit.
Missiles! Mines! Gatling guns!
Thanks for all the testing. The game wasn’t really intended to be a long term thing more a way of trying out JPCT again - I’ve got an RPG to be getting on with (which I’ll post soon honest ;)).
However, thanks to all the positivity I think I’ll try and find some more time for this one and at least get the original aims done!
Thanks again,
Kev
Bit of an update:
http://www.cokeandcode.com/applets/jpct/
Added:
5 Cars - each with different traits. Number 4 is my fave, nice and fast and super slippy.
5 Tracks - just whatever I felt like designing at the time.
Bridges
Speed Ramps
Menus and Stuff
Look ahead camera - lets you see ahead of the car, get a bit of warning about those corners.
Bug Fixes
Known Issues:
- If you jump off the track (by hitting a bridge) it’s not handled. You either end up flying around or driving outside. Either way your only real option is press escape, go back to the menu and start afresh.
- Refresh issues, sometimes the applet thinks it doesn’t need to update the whole screen, no idea why.
- There really isn’t a goal atm.
Any comments, thoughts appreciated…
Kev
near to be a finished game !
about feedbacks… hum… more than 100 fps in low quality but feel more like less than 25 (not smooth), at first I thought that the FPS counter was wrong but then it remember me a problem I got when I was doing a similar car demo wich was related to a camera movment that was not smoothly following the car and was making the whole appear not smooth, so you may have a problem in camera displacment ( and/or FPS counter ).
less importants points:
- when driving backward the direction should be reversed
- sometime car go throught jump or jump 10 times higher then it should : problem on collision detection, also response on wall collision is IMHO a bit too “hard” (not enought slide)
- camera show a too small part of the run this make driving very hard : camera should show more space front of the car.
- last but not least, I love thoses 3d models cars !!
Great fun!!!
~100fps in low qual and 40-50 for high. Both felt smooth enough. 50 - 90% cpu use evenly distributed. Collision detection seemed to eat quite a bit of cpu cycles.
DzzD pointed out pretty much the same things I noted. Walls were for me sometimes behaving as expected and sometimes as if they were coated with glue. possibly depending on the orientation of the wall.
The camera should in my view be higher up, rather than even more look ahead. Have you tried to let the camera just follow the car, facing the direction the car is moving? One idea could be to let the camera be placed like a helium balloon attached to the car, so that when it is going slow it will be almost top down right above car and when going flat out it will be right behind almost facing straight ahead. Just an idea, since I think it is quite easy to fiddle with that sort of thing. Might just as well make you seasick, but could be fun, just to try something a bit different. Hmm since I have made a very similar game, only in 2D, I should maybe try this out for myself…
So I guess you are a sponsored game dev now? Those models are sweet looking. Will those rocket launchers be active in the next release?
Thanks for reporting about how it is to get started with JPCT. I have long (since that C64 remake game) been thinking about trying it out, since it is a very applet friendly framework, and that is the “size of game” that I like to do. I am quite impressed with how much you managed to do in such a short time.
(Aside: [When] will slick get rid of scary pop-ups? Can we have some hope for this?)
What did you use to create the tracks? Are they complete 3D objects?
I hope you continue with it 'til it is a complete game!
The FPS counter is right. The camera displacement is a recent addition which might be giving that impressive I guess. I’ll take a look.
Good stuff, I’ll try and fix.
Aye, but it’ll never be massive amounts, sort the intended feel, close quarters.
Yep, thank the great folks over at http://www.3drt.com
I’m considering a JOGL renderer at the moment for exactly that reason. Not sure whether I can really be bothered with it though. The reason there isn’t a dialog for this of course is there is no natives involved, all software wonders
I used my favorite technique, the tracks are designed as SVG diagrams in Inkscape and then the engine builds a track based on the data.
Thanks for the feedback guys!
Kev
;D
Sorry I have succeeded in going outside the fourth track, I don’t know how. I can send you a screen capture if you want.
yeah, you could easily in like 5 min make it a complete game :P. just make it so that each lap you have less time to do it. So you try and do as many laps as possible :).
Yeah, it’s a known bug (commented in the last post). Not sure how to handle it tbh, maybe just an out of bounds message or something.
I want best lap time and replays so you can race ghost cars of other people store on google app engine. Oh, and sounds Unfortunately many other projects at the moment.
Kev
you could just have a ramp along all the outside of the walls, so you can jump out if you manage to jump the wall somehow.
or you could just to what games like f-zero do, if you jump the wall and touch the ground outside the track, your car blows up and re-spawns inside the track (causing you to loose time).
On an unrelated note, I have to say that your new icon is very cool, Kev, now that I actually know what it is.
This is amazing for just a quick demo. It’s unbelievable the way you can whip things like this up so quickly.
I’d love it if you added shooting and turned it into a mario kart style game!
40-50 fps on 2.2ghz dual core, windows vista, nvidia geforce card.