I’m looking to do some tests with alternative Java VMs. That is VMs that can run Java classes proper api classes installed and is stable enough to work with most Java libraries available on the net.
Having extras that will help with game development would be very interesting. Anything you can recommend?
IBM have one (J9). I haven’t worked with it on desktop, but J9 CDC/PP was the best option for Java on PocketPC a couple of years ago. It’s not free though, so if you’re looking for a VM to distribute with your games it’s probably not what you want. I was developing for a client who was happy to buy and install it.
IMHO the Sun JVM is easily the best, at least for desktop apps. I find it’s the most stable, bug free, complete and it’s also top (or near the top) in most performance benchmarks between JVMs.
Maybe you can look at PERC: