More feedback on Gravity Trap

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#1

Ok, so I finally got some free time to work on some long standing bugs in my first game, Gravity Trap. I hope to enter it in the java-gaming.org game programming contest, if it ever gets off the ground (Space Ghost promised an announcement at JavaOne, so we can only hope). I was wondering if anybody has time to play it and give some feedback…the game is small (about 20k) so bandwidth shouldn’t be a problem.

Anyway, here is the Java Web Start link:

http://www.xmeta.com/games/GravityTrap.jnlp

or download the jar file directly:

http://www.xmeta.com/games/GravityTrap.jar

Controls:

Left and right arrow keys turn the ship.
Up arrow thrusts forward.
Down arrow flips the ship 180 degress.
Space or Ctrl fires.
‘s’ key toggles sound off and on, just in case you play at the office :-).

Known bugs:

On my aging laptop with an ATI Rage Mobility graphics card, I need to manually go to the display control panel and set the display to 256 colors, even though I am doing so programatically as well, otherwise the game runs really slow. No problems on the other machines I have tested it on.

#2

By the way, J2SE 1.4+ required, it is a full screen BufferStrategy-based game.

#3

Tried it on an P4-3.2Ghz machine and it ran much too fast…unplayable… :frowning:

#4

Down arrow flips the ship 180 degress

yea ;D

well… no probs here. works as intended :slight_smile:

#5

[quote]Tried it on an P4-3.2Ghz machine and it ran much too fast…unplayable
[/quote]
3.2GHz, you snob. This is what you deserve ;D
But seriously, on my AMD 2200+ I didn’t have any speed problems, but my ship seems to disappear every now and then for no apparent reason.
Running on WinXP, java 1.4.1_01, 512Mb, GF4 Ti4200.

Otherwise, nice :slight_smile:
I especially like how small asteroid pieces can get combined again to form bigger asteroids again.
Now only for some more eye candy…

Erik

#6

Runs great on my laptop w/ Rage mobility also.
Even though that card sucks. I can’t get any decent 3d apps to run in opengl on it. I got the best driver for xp I can find but I still can’t run any lwjgl examples on it. So I am working on 2d software stuff for now… Any ways enough venting… Good Job

#7

Wow, we have finally reached the day where people are saying Java is too fast!

Right now I am just moving the objects by a fixed amount each frame, so obviously those with higher frame rates get a faster game. What I think I need to do is store an ideal move distance based on a fixed frame rate, then adjust that depending on the actual frame rate as follows:

actual distance = ideal distance * ( ideal frame rate / actual frame rate )

Does this look wrong to anybody? I think this will give everyone the same speed, but those with higher frame rates will get smoother animation.

Anyway, I put up a new version that shows the frame rate. Egon, if you and others get a chance could you let me know what rates you are getting, what your hardware is, and if you find that speed slow/ok/fast/way-too-fast.

Note: the game no longer starts right away. Just hit enter after launching it to start.

#8

hi!

i get 100fps. i dont think its running too fast. But i just tried a simple strategy, i just pressd fire and turn right (or left) all the time. got me to level 7 :slight_smile:

athlon 2200+
radeon 9700pro
1.5G Ram
WinXP

#9

Ok, i get 400-450 fps on my machine and it IS unplayable that way… ;D

That’s a:

P4-3Ghz (HT) @ 3.2Ghz
1024MB of dual channel DDR-Ram
ATI9700pro

That’s all that may influence the game’s performance IMHO. Oh, and it’s WinXP home.

#10

Does nothing but put up a black screen on Mac OS X with a Java 1.4.1 beta.

#11

I lied… Apparently the whole game is running (sounds work), but the display is simply ‘not there’… just black screen.

#12

markush:

[quote]i just pressd fire and turn right (or left) all the time. got me to level 7
[/quote]
Yeah, my 1 year old leaned on the space bar and got to level 3. I’ll have to limit the number of shots on-screen at any time, or make them cause more damage to the ship when you hit yourself with a rebound shot to discourage indescriminate firing.

Egon:

[quote]Ok, i get 400-450 fps on my machine and it IS unplayable that way…
[/quote]
Showoff :slight_smile:

swpalmer:

[quote]Does nothing but put up a black screen on Mac OS X with a Java 1.4.1 beta
[/quote]
I only have MacOS 10.1.5 on my G4, so I am unable to use Java 1.4.1 on there yet (requires 10.2.x). Thanks for letting me know that it is broken. By the way, isn’t there a release version of 1.4.1 out on the Mac now instead of the beta? Could someone try it out and let me know if it works on the final release?

#13

Ok folks, I think I got the throttle working properly now. Egon, is the game still unplayable on your UberPC?

#14

It’s better, but the ships’s rotation is still too fast. If i’m trying to rotate it, it’s spinning around like crazy. …or is that intentionally?

#15

Would it help if you turn on vsync in your video driver?

#16

[quote]Would it help if you turn on vsync in your video driver?
[/quote]
Maybe, but i don’t want to… ;D I always have VSync disabled. I don’t know if the Direct3D setting in the driver affects Java2D though…maybe i’ll give it a try when i’m back home.

#17

[quote]isn’t there a release version of 1.4.1 out on the Mac now instead of the beta?
[/quote]
Not THAT beta… This is AFTER the first release. Apple won’t allow further discussion.

#18

Ok, i enabled Vsync for testing purposes and it worked fine that way. But as i said, i never enable vsync, so it’s not really an option for me.

#19

It’s a bit of a strange thing to do, disabling vsync… sort of an extreme hardcore / developer kind of thing to do… seeing as it makes your display tear and thrashes that CPU so that it draws more frames than you can actually see…

Cas :slight_smile:

#20

[quote]It’s a bit of a strange thing to do, disabling vsync… sort of an extreme hardcore / developer kind of thing to do… seeing as it makes your display tear and thrashes that CPU so that it draws more frames than you can actually see…
Cas :slight_smile:
[/quote]
I’m used to disable it since the good old Voodoo1-days, where it ensured a nice performance increase (no triple buffering on that card IIRC) and i never saw a reason to change this habbit. The tearing doesn’t bother me at all. I like the feeling that there is “no limit” for the card to render as fast as it can… ;D…even if i know that it doesn’t make much sense nowadays.