I’ve been prototyping some scenarios for the Cupcake 2D game engine using SFML, and I’m pretty pleased with the performance so far. Here is a screenshot of animating 10,000 sprites at 1280×1024x32 using the Radeon HD3200 built into my motherboard:
The FPS shown is actually an average over the total time the animation was running (about 10 seconds at the point I took the screenshot). The individual frame rate got a little slower as the camera zoomed in, and sped up as it zoomed out.
You’ll notice that all the images are the same, albeit scaled to different sizes. When creating a 2D game, you will often make use of the same graphics over and over again, just changing the way it’s scaled or colored (think backgrounds, bullets, particle effects). So, I thought this would be a good initial performance test for the sprite engine.
Of course, dropping down to a more reasonable number of sprites (4,000) puts the FPS at around 50, depending on the zoom level.
Not bad.
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Linux H4X0Rz
Netbooks get some love from Moblin (for you) and Sugar on a Stick (for the kiddies). Does it get any better? One tip: don’t buy Acer (I have no idea how they are beating Dell in sales).
Windows Fans
XP and Vista are obsolete. No more excuses. What you need to do, my friend, is upgrade to Windows 7.
Once you have that taken care of, banish IE to the far corners of the earth and install Google Chrome. It simply looks and feels like it was made for Windows 7. Simple. Elegant. Fast. And it even does that Aero glass thing.
Next, throw away your buggy, slow Windows anti-virus software. If this prevents you from sleeping at night, and/or you frequently browse, uh, questionable websites, Microsoft has some love for you. Or you could just stop going to those websites.
Once you’ve taken care of that nasty business, please end on a high note with some cool apps and gadgets, and a beautiful twitter client. And don’t forget the games.
Mac Fans
You should try dual-booting or virtualizing Windows 7. Really, it’s not evil. And it lets you play more games (for the 5-10 minutes a day when you aren’t on your iPhone). Of course, there’s still some cross-platform indie love out there. You do like robots, don’t you? I thought so.
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Bad antivirus software gives Windows a bad name. The first thing you should do whenever you get a new Windows computer is to completely remove any preinstalled antivirus software. I know, I’m totally crazy. But guess what? My computer runs a lot better than yours.
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Posted in How To | 2 Comments »
Star Guard is a great example of how simple graphics can be animated in fun ways. Add some interesting game mechanics and a fun way to tell a story, and you’ve got a game with soul.
What separates a dumb game from a great one? It isn’t the graphics, fancy AI, or voice acting. No, it’s the simple fact that really great games got soul. That is what turns them into classics. It’s the behind-the-scenes love the creators put into their work to turn it into a work of art.
All those who have gone before you have perished.
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Great achievements in art, literature, engineering, science, or any other discipline are only made possible by the many prototypes, rough drafts, and failed ideas which preceded them. Assuming elegance to be the essential characteristic of any masterpiece, it is astonishing how much background work is required to reduce something to its most powerful and essential elements. Even more surprising, perhaps, is the relative obscurity that such work inherits at the precise moment the goal is distilled. Fools may then gain the advantage of our ignorance.
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