I have a CRT screen and I ran the game at 1027x768@60Hz. Ran Fraps to check the actual fps, and it was consistently at about 60.
Hmm… 60Mhz makes me sick to, that’s why I asked. Can your monitor do 72 or higher? Just wondering if that will at least take away the sea sick feeling and get it to where she just doesn’t like it 
hehe
Nah, don’t think I’m winning her over on this game. Perhaps with more polish, the girls like the polish.
Anyway, I was trying it out further, to see if I could get to the second level (yes, I’m THAT bad) and I got a new and exciting error:
error.log
Error log started - Kumari Kandum Version 0.3.1 (alpha) - November 27th, 2005
No OpenGL errors
java.lang.NullPointerException
at com.vorax.gameobjs.powerups.PowerGem.setBall(PowerGem.java:168)
at com.vorax.gameobjs.powerups.PowerGem.setRandomColor(PowerGem.java:118)
at com.vorax.levels.GameLevel.renderPowerGems(GameLevel.java:1499)
at com.vorax.levels.GameLevel.renderInterface(GameLevel.java:1370)
at com.vorax.Renderer.renderWorld(Renderer.java:1228)
at com.vorax.Renderer.display(Renderer.java:396)
at com.vorax.VoraxEngine.update(VoraxEngine.java:1226)
at com.vorax.VoraxEngine.doGameLoop(VoraxEngine.java:515)
at com.vorax.VoraxEngine.engineLoop(VoraxEngine.java:1114)
at Kumari.main(Kumari.java:27)
this was with the downloaded (not webstart) 0.3.1 Nov. 27th version mind you. I was firing off a ball at some other ball, and all was going pretty well. I think the game doesn’t want to show me the second level.
Your really “Busting my balls” here
Looks like a timing fluke, thanks for posting - I’ll have to add a null check there.
Doh! :o
Email sent to web site admin, trying to get it fixed now. Thanks for the heads up.
WebStart link all fixed now.
I’ll be uploading a new version between XMas and the New Year - I have two full weeks off of work to make some headway on the game - woohoo!
A little progress update:
- I’ve improved the rendering engine (yet again). FPS never goes below 100 on any level for me.
- improved engine timing substantially with nano time and some reworking of the “pistons” of the engine. The game is quite playable even with FPS as low as 15! For folks with computers from this millenium, you will see a noticable smoothness improvement, even though it was already smooth.
- save/continue game is done
- finished the main menu scene and menu (much nicer now I think)
- started on level 3 (good progress so far), doing some more tweaks to game play
- smashed a couple of bugs
- started re-doing my website for the game launch (Vorax Games). If you look at the banner on the top, you will see something of the completed graphics for the main menu scene.
New Version 0.5 - December 29th, 2005
This is the latest update of Kumari. It’s got alot of bug fixes, more polish, all menus completed, player profiles (save game), high scores, options all work, one new sound track and 2 new levels (the second is a kind of boss level…good luck ;)), and tweaks to the original two levels.
FPS is shown, along with what percentage of time the renderer and CPU are using per frame. This should be useful for diagnosing performance problems. On my AMD 2600 it’s pretty damn obvious by those numbers that Java is more then capable for video games - CPU usage is typically 5-15% of the actual time it takes to render a frame.
The engine itself should be smoother and due to some large changes, even at low FPS on older computers the game should be playable. This is of course a theory, until someone with a slow computer tries it and let’s me know. 
Kumari Kandum - Game, Info and Screenshots (Windows and Mac only)
NOTE: This is on a different server, any old version of Kumari you had will still be in your webstart as a seperate instance. ChrisM You should update to this link on your blog, it’s a new (more reliable) provider.
I appreciate any feedback, comments and especially bug reports.
Thanks for testing!
Any motion on getting Linux working? Or maybe providing a download if the webstart is just fubar?
JK
My Windows box held the framerate at 35fps (half the refresh rate), GeforceFX 5200
My Mac laptop was at 59fps (basically the refresh rate of 60 rounded down?) - ATI 8500/9000
Neither showed significant CPU usage.
No promises on Linux any time soon. I don’t have any way to test what’s going on, so it’s very hard to debug 
35FPS? That’s pretty bad for a 5200FX - I have a 5700 and never go below 100 FPS - how much video RAM?. What’s your CPU, memory? Were you running full screen? Was anti-aliasing enabled in options?
Yup that would be it. It tries for 72hz, but if it can’t get it, it drops to 60.
CPU: Dual 1.7GHz, 512MB system RAM (had lots of other stuff loaded at the time, e.g. Eclipse)
Fullscreen.
Gfx: 64MB VRAM Nvidia driver version 6693
I tried to run it again from the Java cache viewer and it just goes to fullscreen mode and then exits immediately before drawing anything. Weird. Running from the JNLP link on your web site works…
Anti-aliasing is off (fast), sync on, fullcreen on, 72Hz refresh
I’m not sure which VM it is running under, I have 1.5.0_05 and 1.6.0b63 installed. I know that running direct from the cache viewer it is using Java 6, since I have the console enabled and I can see that before it goes to fullscreen and bombs out. Perhaps clicking the JNLP link it runs under Java 5 and that’s why it works?
just a quick note - I will update with more later, just on my way out the door.
Had a hang in the game:
I was shooting randomely, having completed the game (506.000+ pts), and at one point, I made a chain so that the balls went backwards as usual, howevert they didn’t attached themselves to the balls behind them - they continued to the start of the lane, upon which kumari hung. Also, the game doesn’t check closing of window!
Did you do get that score on your first game? I think I need to make it harder then 
I just reproduced the problem you had on “Trouble”. I don’t think it will be an issue because right now there is no delay between shots (there will be) - as soon as your last shot hits something or is inserted into a chain, you can fire again. The problem is that you are pushing crystals into the row so fast that some are being pushed out a bit. The physics is a bit loose for performance, and your pushing it to hard…kinda like Neo in the matrix
Doh - didn’t realize closing via window exit wasn’t working - shouldn’t be hard to fix, thanks.
Other then that, I hope you post on your game play experience, performance (without vsynch would be nice :)), thoughts on the new levels, music, etc.
Only two comments on Kumari after 170MB downloaded from my server?
I’ll be happy just to hear if it worked for you or not and what kind of PC you are using.
I am trying to determine if I am ready to head towards beta or not.
Nooooo!
I found that the first level was hard enough
Did you have to play more then one game to get past the first level?
Yes.
Does that mean I suck ???
No I don’t think it means you suck. I think it means I’ll have to tone it down a bit then. I want people to at least get past the first level without dying - If the demo is to tuff then I think it will scare people from buying it.
Did you like the waterfall effect? I am very happy with how that level came out, but I am afraid it’s an FPS killer