>$100/GB for PC100 memory. Look at what GC, XBox, PS/2 do with <=64MB. Then look at EverQuest: Shadows of Luclin, >that takes 512MB for all features, and still looks and runs like a 1998 game, even on a top-end system. Console developers >have learned to eek every bit of power they can out of the hardware, and you have to respect them for that. Yes I agree with this completely. It was probably 4 or 5 years ago that a Swedish programming team produce a Quake-alike that ran as a Java applet inside crappy old Netscape 4 browsers using a 1.1 JDK � all with 100% software rendering and network play. It wasn't the fastest thing in the world but the hardware it was running on at that time was severely lame, and it was pure software rendering! I know the coders who produced that "demo" (called Frag Island) from way back when we coded demos on the ATARI ST in raw 68000 assembly code. They were among the best coders around at the time... and it's worth noting that they had a hell of a lot of job offers after they released that Frag Island demo... all of which I am told they turned down! What I'm trying to say is they could achieve the Quake-style game in Java back then because they are seriously good programmers and know what they are doing � right down to intimate hardware details. The hardware details aren't as important when you're using Java, although an understanding of everything that is going on behind the scenes -is- important. i.e. which image formats are quickest for the native libraries behind the VM to use. I you just use Java to write a game and have no idea about writing high performance applications, especially with Java-specific techniques, you are going to end up with a slow crappy game. If you're a "guru" you could definitely come up with some good stuff! One obvious thing that probably would never occur to the "average" Java programmer is to pre-allocate all your objects if possible. If you can't do that then you should make as many of them mutable as possible and recycle them in pools. This kind of thing is critical to high performance that games require, with or without Java. Of course, programming in Java 3D is not really for the "average" programmer so most of those involved would be aware of such issues :-) Marc
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