Hi John,
Well, as far as Java and sound goes there are a couple of solutions that
could give a developer high powered audio support if he/she needs it.
One such package is the free and open source Joal project which is a
Java binding to OpenAL 1.1. Through Joal a Java developer could get the
same great features as OpenAL such as hardware mixing, 3d positioning,
Virtualization, streaming ogg files, etc. I don't disagree with you
that Java is certainly easier to program, that much is true, but I also
know you wind up installing a lot of extra dependencies with your
application as well.
Let's assume someone writes a game using Java with SWT for the standard
GUI, JInput for input, Joal for audio, and you end up having to create
an installer with several MB of extra dependencies. You have the Java 6
runtime, plus the SWT package, theJInput package, the Joal package,
OpenAL32.dll, all which adds up to around 85 MB of extra dependencies
for that single game. I know many people have highspeed internet, lots
of hard drive space these days, but still adding that much xtra is quite
a lot when you compare it to the size of a similar C++ application.
With a C++ application using SDL for cross-platform input support and
OpenAL for audio support all the developer needs to do is ship two
libraries, SDLMain.dll and OpenAL32.dll,
with the application and that's pretty much it for dependancies. We are
talking about 2 MB for dependencies verses say 85 MB or so in
dependencies. That's a big difference in my book.
Cheers!
John Bannick wrote:
Nick,
Here's the link to the Java Access Bridge:
http://java.sun.com/javase/technologies/accessibility/accessbridge/
We use it with Java / Swing for all our games.
However, I agree with Thomas.
If you are starting out with no legacy code, then you might be better
off with Java / SWT.
Java's two strong points are:
1. It's a lot easier to learn, code, and maintain than C++.
2. You can use it on the Mac and on Linux.
If your games demand high-powered sound, then Thomas is also correct
that the C#/C++ API's are better than what Java offers.
But be prepared for a whole lot of work.
Just ask him.
John Bannick
www.7128.com
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