Gundam

[system]

It’s not because they are stupid. It’s because they don’t have a choice. Either they can’t afford something better (coughMaccough) or the apps they need to run are only available for Windows.

There are also many people out there who have a choice but don’t take it.
If enough people are missing the chance, at one point (in the future - which is now) you actually don’t have any choice - anymore.

This is no offence to anyone (and it doesn’t belong to the Gundam topic; which btw doesn’t run with my Java 1.4.2). I’m one of those, too. Too lazy to kick my Win2000 right now and just using Linux as second OS. When Win2000 dies in the near future I’ll have got a MS free zone anyway, because WinXP or TCPA-Longhorn won’t infect my desktop. Macos-X, oh, that would be nice…

Aside all this I think it’s a shame that so many Java developers don’t care about platform neutrality at all. I know many people who earn their living with developing business Java but use MS software all day withouth being forced to: they had a chance but don’t take it. Or the guys saying “Hey please test my Java application” and then I click and see that it’s an (Win32) exe - what’s that? For any Java application I’m going to use it’s a must that they run on any platform.

[swpalmer]

It’s up to us Java developers to make high-quality platform neutral apps so the choice of OS is given back to the users. As it is the choice IS limited because the quality of applications on non-windows platforms is lower (maybe not so much for Macs, where it is mainly the choices that are less). This makes sense, since the bulk of the skilled developers are pressured to target Windows because of simple economics.

What this has to do with Gundam I don’t know!

But inconsistent feature support (e.g. fullscreen) across various Java runtimes isn’t helping Gundam or the adoption of Java in general. Anyway… I think the Linux OpenGL acceleration coming with 1.5 will help the fullscreen issue.

[erikd]

[quote]There are also many people out there who have a choice but don’t take it.
[/quote]
That’s because they simply don’t bother because it’s not worth it to them. I mean, you really have to want to use linux on your desktop instead of windows.
For servers it’s a slightly other story, though. But still, in many situations it makes perfect sense to use windows for webservers and such.

[Mojomonkey]

Another point that needs to be considered is of computer users 95% (or whatever) use Windows, of those that use Windows (99%) don’t give a crap one way or the other. A computer is a thing for most people not a way of life where Windows is a sin and Linux is salvation. We represent the minority of the population (thank God).

[benny]

[quote]Or the guys saying “Hey please test my Java application” and then I click and see that it’s an (Win32) exe
[/quote]
You know for dumb people (most Windows users, sorry erikd:-[)out there, your Windows batch file won’t run on other systems. So to them, you will be contradicting yourself because you say that your java programs will run on other systems but actually they don’t. Why not use a jar?

[quote] Plus, I’d put it more like 9/10 at least.
[/quote]
Holy cow! I am going to die!

[quote]but then shortly after using it for a few days I realized how horribly disorganized unx is… no UI for any of the important settings… VI is your interface to all system settings, so you have no idea how to get to the setting you are after, or what the valid values might be, and how many other files you need to change to keep things consistent etc… unx is still a nightmare for end users. - And I have a degree in computer engineering… imagine the average user!)
[/quote]
Ok here are some tools that come with Linux to help your nightmare.

KDE-Control Center
GNOME-GDM Configurator, Kickstart Configurator, Linuxconf

Don’t ever use X windows alone! use a desktop on top of X windows: KDE, GNOME, Enlightenment

Or use RedHat Linux 9.

[quote]It’s not because they are stupid. It’s because they don’t have a choice. Either they can’t afford something better (coughMaccough) or the apps they need to run are only available for Windows.
[/quote]
It’s all a chain reaction. A group of stupid people in the beginning used Windows, then developers thought that since so many people used Windows then they should develope for it. The crowd thinks that Windows has the most software and thus uses it, which further encourages people to develope software for Windows. BLAHBLAHBLAH.

But you know the Microsoft business strategy is the best even though it is the meanest and most unfair. Sun sucks at marketing, can’t you tell?

[swpalmer]

[quote]Ok here are some tools that come with Linux to help your nightmare.

KDE-Control Center
GNOME-GDM Configurator, Kickstart Configurator, Linuxconf

Don’t ever use X windows alone! use a desktop on top of X windows: KDE, GNOME, Enlightenment

Or use RedHat Linux 9.
[/quote]
Tried them all… they are a joke. Pretty icons gets you close to nothing in terms of usability. Even finding those config programs is hard enough on Linux.

E.g. A simple thing like changing the desktop display resolution on Linux is a nightmare. I have seen no UI that successfully does that simple thing. On windows a right-click on the desktop takes you to a relatively easy to follow UI. The Linux world still has no clue how to make user friendly software or anything remotely like it. I better stop now… this thread is heading in a bad direction

[tortoise]

E.g. A simple thing like changing the desktop display resolution on Linux is a nightmare.

I really have to wonder how much Linux experience you have if this is your example.

Not that I’m defending Linux. After using Linux exclusively for 3+ years I gave up and now use Windows 99% of the time (and question everyday why I ever bought a PC in the first place )

But really, Linux isn’t nearly that bad. All in all, the Linux community has done wonders with what they’ve got to work with.

[swpalmer]

[quote]I really have to wonder how much Linux experience you have if this is your example.
[/quote]
Well I’ve tried it 3 times for months at a time… it was very frustrating so I just gave up all three times. I still have a machine that boots into linux for testing Java apps, but I don’t use it. (The display resolution is too low :), and it locks up every 24 hours from what appears to be a memory leak in the SCSI drivers.)

I noticed you didn’t have a solution to changing the desktop resolution… let me guess… pull out VI search for some X11 config file, guess at values to put in some tables buried within, pray that your monitor can still sync when you restart X…

–edit-- I see the latest RedHat does have a GUI for this. When you choose to launch this program there is no feedback for about 10 seconds and you wonder if it is going to run or not. Then after changing the resolution it basically tells you that it has edited your XF86Config file for you and you will have to log out and restart the X server for the changes to take effect… Logging out is not enough though… it seems that doesn’t actually restart the X Server although it it looks like it might because the display goes black and comes back. Seems a reboot is required. Hmm. just tried that too… nope, no change, apparently the display resolution GUI is some cruel joke… it still has a long way to go.

Another example: configuring Samba… I spent hours on a linux help irc channel with someone helping me configure that… end result was that the linux expert gave up and blamed Red Hat. Oh, and the procedure - straight to the text files again - no UI, no showing a list of what is on the LAN so I can simply pick the machine to connect too. Just hours of fiddling with text files to no avail.

I can only speak from my months of experience… it is pretty darn frustrating if the installer (Red Hat) didn’t leave it exactly like you want it.

but let’s take this debate offline… I feel guilty for hijacking this thread.

[jbanes]

No sound effects during the game - yeah, that’s because there aren’t any! I was having problems playing repeated sound effects on demand. I posted an article on JavaGaming about 8 months ago (when I was still developing Gundam!) about the problem but it remained unsolved (hence Gundam’s still a beta release).

GAGESound gets around this problem by doing its own mixing. The problem with using Clips is that to restart a Clip, the sound thread goes into a hard loop to drain the remaining data. Not a very cool design.

[quote] I noticed you didn’t have a solution to changing the desktop resolution… let me guess… pull out VI search for some X11 config file, guess at values to put in some tables buried within, pray that your monitor can still sync when you restart X…
[/quote]
If your system is configured to allow for more than one resolution, try CTRL++ and CTRL±.

[nonnus29]

Very nice game! The thing that stands out the most to me is:

1. the excellent physics

2. the wonderful gfx; not programmer art here!

3. overall polish

Very nice.

Now about unx: I’ve played with it, but I agree with swpalmer, its just too steep of a learning curve and me personally, I don’t have the attention span. Another thing; I’ve used mingw quiet a bit and it bugs me to no end the way the unx tools all have 1-3 letter names

And my other main peeve; why does the iDev games pgming contest have to be natively compiled? I’d enter if I could use Java, but since I don’t have a Mac to compile on its not even an option.
[/rant]

[gregorypierce]

Give me a free copy of your game and I’ll build it for you In fact I’ll go ahead and talk to my partner about just offering it as a free service.

[swpalmer]

[quote]And my other main peeve; why does the iDev games pgming contest have to be natively compiled? I’d enter if I could use Java, but since I don’t have a Mac to compile on its not even an option.
[/quote]
If you are referring to this rule:
6. Only native Mac OS X double-clickable applications will be accepted (ie: without emulation software, including Classic).

Note that it doesn’t mean natively compiled. Standard Java apps can be packaged as a normal double clickable application on OS X. It’s just a matter of a bit of XML and keeping the files organized a certain way. Java apps are well supported on OS X.

[nonnus29]

[quote] 6. Only native Mac OS X double-clickable applications will be accepted (ie: without emulation software, including Classic).
[/quote]
I took the native bit to mean something else, obviously. Thanks!

[gregorypierce]

There is a tool on OSX called Jar Bundler that simplifies the process entirely. All you need to do is put a .jar file together and send me the libraries along with the desktop icon and I can put together a double-clickable application for ya. No reason for any Java developer using our APIs to not be able to enter the contest.

[jbanes]

[quote]There is a tool on OSX called Jar Bundler that simplifies the process entirely.
[/quote]
Has anyone else noticed that MRJBuilder doesn’t always finish filling out the Info XML file? At least on my iBook, I have to fill out the information related to the Java version manually, otherwise it won’t run.

[Slimer]

Deftly stepping around issues of Linux complexity and Macintosh native jar building with such speed and elegance that no one notices…

To let you know I’ve just added an in-game option to change the colour bit depth of the display and Gundam can now run a hell of a lot faster than it used to. The bit depth used to be hard coded to 24 (bad Slimer, bad Slimer…) which may have caused problems on some machines…

As for Gundam not running on Java v1.4.2, yeah I’ve noticed that exclusive Full Screen Mode (on Win2K at least - apologies to all you Linux / Macintosh guys and gals) is a lot more unstable than in v1.4.1.

At last, an explanation for my sound problems! I think I’ll be looking at GAGE Sound in the not so distant future… Alternatively, as the MOD player doesn’t seem to suffer from sound glitches I always thought about trying to use that to mix sound samples together.

And for “3/5 of the freakin’ world” I’ve cobbled together a nifty Windows installer - separate .zip file still available for the other 2/5.

[swpalmer]

For the 3/5 and the other 2/5… try InstallAnywhere by ZeroG it’s a pretty good installer package in general. It makes installers for most platforms.

[gregorypierce]

WebStart works for 5/5ths of the world

[Slimer]

The last time I looked, InstallAnywhere by ZeroG was not completely free :-[ - free being a requirement needed for a shareware program of mine (StrutsGUI). I then happened accross NSIS by Nullsoft (the WinAmp people). For a Windows only installer, it’s fantastic!

WebStart :-/…hmm… I’ll look into it…

[quote]1. the excellent physics
[/quote]
I tried hard to get the momentum and energy transfer just right and the maths is not as easy as it looks. The one place where the physics still fail me is when Gundam bounces off solid rocks.

[TheBohemian]

Unfortunately I could not get the game to run. The screen got black and then it crashed.
Specs: WinXP, JRE 1.4.2, 512 MB, GeForce256

As gregorypierce mentioned: Why not using webstart? It is not so difficult as it seems:

• configuring server for new mime type
• writing jnlp file (xml based)
• sign all jars
• using Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader().getResource(pathToResource + “/” + resourceName) for loading all your images, sound and whatever.

It is definately worth to include WebStart (in general JNLP) functionality because you get it handles downloading, installation und updating for you.

Here an excerpt from the crash log:

An unexpected exception has been detected in native outside the VM.
Unexpected Signal : EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION (0xc0000005) occurred at PC=0x2EAB3B6
Function=Java_sun_print_Win32PrintJob_endPrintRawData+0x5282
Library=G:\JDK1.4\jre\bin\awt.dll

Current Java thread:
      at sun.java2d.DefaultDisposerRecord.invokeNativeDispose(Native Method)
      at sun.java2d.DefaultDisposerRecord.dispose(DefaultDisposerRecord.java:25)
      at sun.java2d.Disposer.run(Disposer.java:102)
      at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:534)