---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Subject: Re: Writing 3D games with Perl... How's the Performance? Date: Friday 24 December 2010, 12:43:11 From: Shlomi Fish <shlo...@iglu.org.il> To: beginners@perl.org CC: "U.N." <blahbleh...@hotmail.com>
Hi U.N./J/whatever, a few corrections about what you said. On Friday 24 December 2010 03:56:50 U.N. wrote: > Hi folks. I'm a Perl n00b, and I have a long ways to go yet. > However, I was hoping someone looking down from the top could share > some wisdom with me about the viability of Perl for 3D worlds. > Obviously I'm not looking for someone to tell me *how* to do this, I'm > just asking how good the result typically is. I've seen references to > SDL and OpenGL modules in Perl, so I bet it is safe to assume that > Perl can do graphics at the same level as other languages. Not sure, perl 5 is much slower than C or C++ (for example), and sometimes games need to be faster than what perl 5 can do. Sometimes it will be good enough, though. You are right that there are bindings for SDL and for OpenGL for Perl: http://search.cpan.org/dist/SDL/ You may wish to look at the demos over there and on github. > I > understand that the key will be performance (interpreted vs. compiled > programs). Perl 5 is not purely interpreted - it is a P-code language: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-code_machine > > Something that gives me hope is a great game in Beta right now called > Minecraft, which is a 3D mining/construction game written in Java. > I'm not looking to clone Minecraft, but I have a lot of game ideas > that would have similar elements- namely open-ended 3D physics > sandboxes with medium graphics and simple devices that can be > interconnected in complex ways to build working stuff. No I'm not > talking about FPS games or anything with intense fast-moving > graphics. Yes I know that there are about 50 languages that someone > would pick before Perl to do this, but why not? > > I realize that comparing Java and Perl is like comparing Apples and > Oranges, but since they are both interpreted I would guess that they > both share a similar performance handicap. Jave is also not interpreted. Like Perl it is compiled to bytecode, but unlike Perl, this bytecode can be executed directly from the disk (e.g: its .class files), and, furthermore, many Java implementation contain an additional optimisation step called Just-in-time compilation (JIT): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-in-time_compilation This improves the performance considerably, and as a result, Java code tends to run much faster than the equivalent Perl one. (Though many people feel Java has other performance issues such as being "sluggish", where Perl fares better.). > > Anyways... Has anyone ever done something similar or close to 3D > environments with Perl on modern x86 hardware? 2D environments with > lots of complex elements in constant interaction? Well, you should ask that on the #sdl channel on irc.perl.org. The SDL guys created some games and demos to demonstrate Perl/SDL. Regards, Shlomi Fish > > Thanks and bacon planks. > > -J -- Shlomi Fish -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: beginners-unsubscr...@perl.org For additional commands, e-mail: beginners-h...@perl.org http://learn.perl.org/
