Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes
Hi Hayden, Okay, but after this we really really need to get back on topic. This is way off topic. Smile. The name Bash is an achronim for Born Again Shell. Unlike Dos that has a single user interface, a common shell environment you might say, different brands of Unix like BSD, Solaris, Sco, etc all developed their own shell environments independantly like the Born shell, Ash, Corn shell, and a few others I can't remember. To make a long story short when Linux came along the open source community decided to create a free and open source shell environment similar to the Born shell and called it the Born Again Shell or Bash for short. Over time Bash pretty much became the open source and Unix standard, and is by far the most popular shell environment on the market. Not only is it the default for every Linux operating system out there Mac OSX uses Bash as its shell environment too. As for the term shell it means exactly that. A shell is simply a basic input output system for the operating system that allows you to interact with the OS by using simple instructions like cd to change directory or del to delete a file. It is called a shell because it provides a low-level shell that everything else including the graphical user interface is built upon. Even in an operating system like Windows 7 the Windows shell is still there. It is just buried under so much graphical stuff the average person doesn't know it is there. However, if you boot Windows and bring up the Windos 7 boot menu you'll see an option to boot to command prompt mode. This is basicly a new name for MS Dos mode. As much as Microsoft tries to hide it the Windows shell is still there and if you know how to get to it Windows XP, Windos Vista, and Windows 7 still have a low-level shell similar to MS Dos that everything is just built on. Linux isn't that much different, but unlike Microsoft they don't try to bury the shell under lots of graphical user interfaces and act like it isn't there. Cheers! On 11/4/10, Hayden Presley wrote: > Hi Thomas, > Just one more thing...where does "shell" and "bash" come from? > > Best Regards, > Hayden --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes
Hi Thomas, Just one more thing...where does "shell" and "bash" come from? Best Regards, Hayden -Original Message- From: gamers-boun...@audyssey.org [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Ward Sent: Thursday, November 04, 2010 2:23 PM To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes Hi, The Linux shell environment isn't that difficult really. A book on bash shell commands would go a long way to explaining it. In fact I prefer the Linux terminal window over the Windows command prompt because it has features such as automatic completion, the ability to redo last command, etc.What people find daunting about it is that it follows the common Unix shell commands. cd --- Change directory. mkdir --- Create new directory. mv --- Move directory. ls --- list contents of directory. rm --- Remove directories and files. cp --- Copy file or directory. You get the idea. Most people who grew up on Dos or use Windows find those shell commands unusual and downright strange. Thing is those commands existed before Dos or Windows ever existed. However, like everything else, once Microsoft came along they decided to do everything their own way, and of course everyone went along with it. Now, people who used Dos or the Windows command prompt find Linux, which uses time honored Unix shell commands, is weird or unusual. All the same Bash is also customizable too. If you open .bashrc you can remap those commands to anything you want. You can add an entry like alias copy='cp -r' so you can type copy and it will execute the cp command. I often use this ability to customize bash to create a single command that executes a long command. For example, alias install='sudo apt-get install' simplifies the apt-get install command to something very simple and quick to use. So Definitely the Linux terminal window is far more powerful than the Windows command prompt by a long shot. Smile. On 11/3/10, Hayden Presley wrote: > Hi Thomas, > After reading your (novella? ) I went to Blind Cool Tech to se what > there was on Linux there. Interesting OS, except for the terminal; that > definitely looks...daunting. I'll stop now. > > Best Regards, > Hayden --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes
Hi, The Linux shell environment isn't that difficult really. A book on bash shell commands would go a long way to explaining it. In fact I prefer the Linux terminal window over the Windows command prompt because it has features such as automatic completion, the ability to redo last command, etc.What people find daunting about it is that it follows the common Unix shell commands. cd --- Change directory. mkdir --- Create new directory. mv --- Move directory. ls --- list contents of directory. rm --- Remove directories and files. cp --- Copy file or directory. You get the idea. Most people who grew up on Dos or use Windows find those shell commands unusual and downright strange. Thing is those commands existed before Dos or Windows ever existed. However, like everything else, once Microsoft came along they decided to do everything their own way, and of course everyone went along with it. Now, people who used Dos or the Windows command prompt find Linux, which uses time honored Unix shell commands, is weird or unusual. All the same Bash is also customizable too. If you open .bashrc you can remap those commands to anything you want. You can add an entry like alias copy='cp -r' so you can type copy and it will execute the cp command. I often use this ability to customize bash to create a single command that executes a long command. For example, alias install='sudo apt-get install' simplifies the apt-get install command to something very simple and quick to use. So Definitely the Linux terminal window is far more powerful than the Windows command prompt by a long shot. Smile. On 11/3/10, Hayden Presley wrote: > Hi Thomas, > After reading your (novella? ) I went to Blind Cool Tech to se what > there was on Linux there. Interesting OS, except for the terminal; that > definitely looks...daunting. I'll stop now. > > Best Regards, > Hayden --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes
Hi Jim, Nope. I don't recall ever being on that list. If you say it was about 10 years ago I was too busy with college classes to do much with mailing lists etc. On 11/4/10, Jim Kitchen wrote: > Hi Thomas, > > Hey, were you ever on the Blind-L list by Brian Lingard? It was for the > discussion of dos and linux. Not sure if the list is still around. I > haven't been on it for 10 years or so. > > BFN --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes
Hi Thomas, Hey, were you ever on the Blind-L list by Brian Lingard? It was for the discussion of dos and linux. Not sure if the list is still around. I haven't been on it for 10 years or so. BFN - Original Message - Hi Hayden, To start with I actually first heard about Linux while I was a student of Wright State University around 1998 or 1999. At the time I was taking a lot of computer science courses, and I was taking a course on network administration as well as various programming courses. When it comes to network servers Unix based operating systems such as Solaris, BSD, Sco, Linux, etc out number Windows servers by a huge margin. So obviously this network admin course I was taking was aimed at instructing students to use Unix operating systems. Unfortunately, the Unix labs were not eequipped for the blind, nor were most Unix operating systems remotely accessible fora blind network admin at that time. Obviously this could have been serious trouble for me personally. Fortunately, a friend of mine, a teaching assistant in the class, told me there was a free Unixlike operating system called Linux. Besides being free he had heard there was a blind mailing list for Linux called blinux. So I checked it out and found out there were console screen readers such as Speakup being developed for the Linux operating system. So I downloaded a copy of Red Hat Linux 6.0, got the Speakup source code, patched the Linux kernel, and recompiled the Red Hat kernel with Speakup and configured it to use my Dectalk Express for speech output. Voila, I had a completely accesssible Linux operating system, and was able to do all the lab work using Linux. Fortunately, it was similar enough to the Unix operating system Wright State was running that I made it through the course without a hitch. As it turned out Linux was very helpful in my programming classes as well. For example, when I was taking a course on SQL, the Structure Quary Language, and the class was using Oricle. Oricle is a very popular, extremely expensive, database system used by large companies. Unfortunately for me besides being very expensive it was also pretty darn inaccessible using Jaws, Window-eyes, or anything else Windows had to offer. Big problem for me. Around that time an open source database system, MySQL, was starting to become popular with companies and definitely with Linux users/supporters. Unlike Oricle it was free and also quite accesssible. So instead of logging lab time with Oricle, which sucked accessibility wise, I could sit at home in my dorm room and practice creating SQL databases with my good friend MySQL for Linux and the Speakup screen reader. Once again Linux had just saved my butt in a situation that could have gone very badly. After leaving college I pretty much kept one Linux computer around for odd jobs. After all I knew how to use it, and I could use it as a file server, practice web server, setup cvs to manage source code revisions, whatever. In other words I pretty much used at as a home server operating system in the way I was trained to think of it while maintaining Windows for everything else. However, all of that began to change around 2007 after Windows Vista came out. Early in 2007 Windows Vista was released to the mainstream market and around the first week of February 2007 I ran out and purchasd Windows Vista upgrades for all of our Windows XP computers. Unfortunately, at that time Windows Vista was very unstable, crashed a lot, had several driver problems, and ran slower than a snale on all of my computers. While there were many things i personally liked such as improved security, the U.I. looked nicer, etc the early releases of Windows Vista were a host of technical problems that dramaticly detracted from the OS. I felt, as many other people did, that Vista was released far too soon and Microsoft was just milking the PC market prefering to sell an unstable product based on Microsoft's name alone rather than quality and stability. However, I think I could have put up with the quality control issues if Microsoft hadn't decided to outright screw me with their polacies and hardware product activation crap. As I have mentioned before About three or four months after I had purchased all these Vista upgrades my wife and I moved and my desktop computer's motherboard was damaged in the move. I had no choice but to order a new motherboard and replace the existing one. What happened next is quite obvious. As soon as I repaired my desktop Windows Vista told me that my product license was invalid. Since Windows Vista uses a hardware based authorization system my license was junk. I didn't especially like Windows Vista trying to tell me I was running an illegal copy of Windows, and to purchase a valid license. It was absolute bologna because I did have a valid product license for Vista, but thanks to Microsoft's anti-piracy schemes I was being treated like a criminal. All the same I called Microsoft up, exp
Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes
Hi Thomas, After reading your (novella? ) I went to Blind Cool Tech to se what there was on Linux there. Interesting OS, except for the terminal; that definitely looks...daunting. I'll stop now. Best Regards, Hayden -Original Message- From: gamers-boun...@audyssey.org [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Ward Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 2010 7:06 AM To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes Hi Hayden, To start with I actually first heard about Linux while I was a student of Wright State University around 1998 or 1999. At the time I was taking a lot of computer science courses, and I was taking a course on network administration as well as various programming courses. When it comes to network servers Unix based operating systems such as Solaris, BSD, Sco, Linux, etc out number Windows servers by a huge margin. So obviously this network admin course I was taking was aimed at instructing students to use Unix operating systems. Unfortunately, the Unix labs were not eequipped for the blind, nor were most Unix operating systems remotely accessible fora blind network admin at that time. Obviously this could have been serious trouble for me personally. Fortunately, a friend of mine, a teaching assistant in the class, told me there was a free Unixlike operating system called Linux. Besides being free he had heard there was a blind mailing list for Linux called blinux. So I checked it out and found out there were console screen readers such as Speakup being developed for the Linux operating system. So I downloaded a copy of Red Hat Linux 6.0, got the Speakup source code, patched the Linux kernel, and recompiled the Red Hat kernel with Speakup and configured it to use my Dectalk Express for speech output. Voila, I had a completely accesssible Linux operating system, and was able to do all the lab work using Linux. Fortunately, it was similar enough to the Unix operating system Wright State was running that I made it through the course without a hitch. As it turned out Linux was very helpful in my programming classes as well. For example, when I was taking a course on SQL, the Structure Quary Language, and the class was using Oricle. Oricle is a very popular, extremely expensive, database system used by large companies. Unfortunately for me besides being very expensive it was also pretty darn inaccessible using Jaws, Window-eyes, or anything else Windows had to offer. Big problem for me. Around that time an open source database system, MySQL, was starting to become popular with companies and definitely with Linux users/supporters. Unlike Oricle it was free and also quite accesssible. So instead of logging lab time with Oricle, which sucked accessibility wise, I could sit at home in my dorm room and practice creating SQL databases with my good friend MySQL for Linux and the Speakup screen reader. Once again Linux had just saved my butt in a situation that could have gone very badly. After leaving college I pretty much kept one Linux computer around for odd jobs. After all I knew how to use it, and I could use it as a file server, practice web server, setup cvs to manage source code revisions, whatever. In other words I pretty much used at as a home server operating system in the way I was trained to think of it while maintaining Windows for everything else. However, all of that began to change around 2007 after Windows Vista came out. Early in 2007 Windows Vista was released to the mainstream market and around the first week of February 2007 I ran out and purchasd Windows Vista upgrades for all of our Windows XP computers. Unfortunately, at that time Windows Vista was very unstable, crashed a lot, had several driver problems, and ran slower than a snale on all of my computers. While there were many things i personally liked such as improved security, the U.I. looked nicer, etc the early releases of Windows Vista were a host of technical problems that dramaticly detracted from the OS. I felt, as many other people did, that Vista was released far too soon and Microsoft was just milking the PC market prefering to sell an unstable product based on Microsoft's name alone rather than quality and stability. However, I think I could have put up with the quality control issues if Microsoft hadn't decided to outright screw me with their polacies and hardware product activation crap. As I have mentioned before About three or four months after I had purchased all these Vista upgrades my wife and I moved and my desktop computer's motherboard was damaged in the move. I had no choice but to order a new motherboard and replace the existing one. What happened next is quite obvious. As soon as I repaired my desktop Windows Vista told me that my product license was invalid. Since Windows Vista uses a hardware based authorization system my license was junk. I didn't especially like Windows Vista trying to tell me I was running an illega
Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes
Yeah. And my wife's computer is older as it is so when she wants to relax after work and play on the internet she runs into trouble because the computer has to download and install new updates and it slows things down even more. So I think she's going to look into getting a Mack at some point since unlike me she doesn't have to worry about lots of audio games that only run on Windows. We are the Knights who say...Ni! - Original Message - From: "Thomas Ward" To: "Gamers Discussion list" Sent: Thursday, November 04, 2010 7:48 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes Hi Bryan, Yeah, that's pretty much it in a nutshell. On 11/4/10, Bryan Peterson wrote: Probably frustration and disappointment with Windows and Microsoft in general. My wife and I can certainly sympathize since we're both in that boat LOL. We are the Knights who say...Ni! --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes
Hi Bryan, Yeah, that's pretty much it in a nutshell. On 11/4/10, Bryan Peterson wrote: > Probably frustration and disappointment with Windows and Microsoft in > general. My wife and I can certainly sympathize since we're both in that > boat LOL. > We are the Knights who say...Ni! --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes
Probably frustration and disappointment with Windows and Microsoft in general. My wife and I can certainly sympathize since we're both in that boat LOL. We are the Knights who say...Ni! - Original Message - From: "Hayden Presley" To: "'Gamers Discussion list'" Sent: Tuesday, November 02, 2010 5:01 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes Hi Thomas, If I may ask, what prompted your change to Linux? Best Regards, Hayden -Original Message- From: gamers-boun...@audyssey.org [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Charles Rivard Sent: Tuesday, November 02, 2010 11:15 AM To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes I found that a strange response, too, that was a complete break from the logical reasons why the cross platform project is in process. --- Shepherds are the best beasts! - Original Message - From: "Thomas Ward" To: "Gamers Discussion list" Sent: Tuesday, November 02, 2010 12:41 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes Hi Will, I kind of find that surprising coming from you since you are one of the Mac OS supporters. You of all people know the importance of getting a cross-platform engine and games out there on the market for the blind community. I'm one game developer that whole heartedly believes in a persons right to freedom of choice. Anyway, as I've said many times on list already the cross-platform version of the game is personally motivated and not commercially motivated. I don't always use Windows, and I consider it my second operating system and not my primary operating system. As a result my priorities are vastly different from the huge Windows market out there that have a GMA Tank Commander, Shades of Doom, Sarah, and dozens of other good games for their platform of choice. What high quality accessible games do we non-Windows users have? As I have also said before it is not because Linux or Mac OS are bad operating systems. Quite the contrary both have a lot to offer a VI computer user. The access on both operating systems is rapidly catching up with Windows accessibility and now is the time people have a real choice in the software they want to use on their computer. VI computer users are no longer bound to owning and using Microsoft Windows because it is "the most accessible option out there," nor are we forced into paying hundreds of dollars on a screen reader like Jaws or Window-Eyes. For the first time in history companies like Cononical and Apple have addressed accessibility issues by incorperating a full fledged screen reader, magnification software, etc into the operating system itself saving us hundreds of dollars in access software alone. All of this is well and good, but the majority of game developers, and some users, are of a "just release it for Windows" mentality. They are far too willing to surrender their rights to choice for convenience sake. If I were not so passionate about this maybe I would cave into popular opinion, but I am passionate about this. I really believe we all have a right to have not only accessible games, but they should be available for Mac OS and Linux just as they are for x number of Windows users. Of course, that isn't going to happen, because there are far too few developers that have a personal stake in the matter or the skills to do what I do. Sadly far too many accessible game developers have chosen to take a strictly Microsoft path, and have adopted proprietary languages like Visual Basic. Until they begin writing their games in Python, Java, or maybe C++ there never can be games for other platforms. That's why I have chosen to take a personal stand against that very problem. Cheers! On 10/29/10, william lomas wrote: i'd have just ignored cross platform really and just finish it up and release the game, since another year has gone without the full release of this title --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. ---
Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes
Hi Hayden, To start with I actually first heard about Linux while I was a student of Wright State University around 1998 or 1999. At the time I was taking a lot of computer science courses, and I was taking a course on network administration as well as various programming courses. When it comes to network servers Unix based operating systems such as Solaris, BSD, Sco, Linux, etc out number Windows servers by a huge margin. So obviously this network admin course I was taking was aimed at instructing students to use Unix operating systems. Unfortunately, the Unix labs were not eequipped for the blind, nor were most Unix operating systems remotely accessible fora blind network admin at that time. Obviously this could have been serious trouble for me personally. Fortunately, a friend of mine, a teaching assistant in the class, told me there was a free Unixlike operating system called Linux. Besides being free he had heard there was a blind mailing list for Linux called blinux. So I checked it out and found out there were console screen readers such as Speakup being developed for the Linux operating system. So I downloaded a copy of Red Hat Linux 6.0, got the Speakup source code, patched the Linux kernel, and recompiled the Red Hat kernel with Speakup and configured it to use my Dectalk Express for speech output. Voila, I had a completely accesssible Linux operating system, and was able to do all the lab work using Linux. Fortunately, it was similar enough to the Unix operating system Wright State was running that I made it through the course without a hitch. As it turned out Linux was very helpful in my programming classes as well. For example, when I was taking a course on SQL, the Structure Quary Language, and the class was using Oricle. Oricle is a very popular, extremely expensive, database system used by large companies. Unfortunately for me besides being very expensive it was also pretty darn inaccessible using Jaws, Window-eyes, or anything else Windows had to offer. Big problem for me. Around that time an open source database system, MySQL, was starting to become popular with companies and definitely with Linux users/supporters. Unlike Oricle it was free and also quite accesssible. So instead of logging lab time with Oricle, which sucked accessibility wise, I could sit at home in my dorm room and practice creating SQL databases with my good friend MySQL for Linux and the Speakup screen reader. Once again Linux had just saved my butt in a situation that could have gone very badly. After leaving college I pretty much kept one Linux computer around for odd jobs. After all I knew how to use it, and I could use it as a file server, practice web server, setup cvs to manage source code revisions, whatever. In other words I pretty much used at as a home server operating system in the way I was trained to think of it while maintaining Windows for everything else. However, all of that began to change around 2007 after Windows Vista came out. Early in 2007 Windows Vista was released to the mainstream market and around the first week of February 2007 I ran out and purchasd Windows Vista upgrades for all of our Windows XP computers. Unfortunately, at that time Windows Vista was very unstable, crashed a lot, had several driver problems, and ran slower than a snale on all of my computers. While there were many things i personally liked such as improved security, the U.I. looked nicer, etc the early releases of Windows Vista were a host of technical problems that dramaticly detracted from the OS. I felt, as many other people did, that Vista was released far too soon and Microsoft was just milking the PC market prefering to sell an unstable product based on Microsoft's name alone rather than quality and stability. However, I think I could have put up with the quality control issues if Microsoft hadn't decided to outright screw me with their polacies and hardware product activation crap. As I have mentioned before About three or four months after I had purchased all these Vista upgrades my wife and I moved and my desktop computer's motherboard was damaged in the move. I had no choice but to order a new motherboard and replace the existing one. What happened next is quite obvious. As soon as I repaired my desktop Windows Vista told me that my product license was invalid. Since Windows Vista uses a hardware based authorization system my license was junk. I didn't especially like Windows Vista trying to tell me I was running an illegal copy of Windows, and to purchase a valid license. It was absolute bologna because I did have a valid product license for Vista, but thanks to Microsoft's anti-piracy schemes I was being treated like a criminal. All the same I called Microsoft up, explained what happened, and asked to have my authorization reset or something. No such luck. He explained to me microsoft's polacy, and that sinceI replaced my motherboard I needed a new product license which would cost me $225 in addi
Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes
Hi Thomas, If I may ask, what prompted your change to Linux? Best Regards, Hayden -Original Message- From: gamers-boun...@audyssey.org [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Charles Rivard Sent: Tuesday, November 02, 2010 11:15 AM To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes I found that a strange response, too, that was a complete break from the logical reasons why the cross platform project is in process. --- Shepherds are the best beasts! - Original Message - From: "Thomas Ward" To: "Gamers Discussion list" Sent: Tuesday, November 02, 2010 12:41 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes > Hi Will, > I kind of find that surprising coming from you since you are one of > the Mac OS supporters. You of all people know the importance of > getting a cross-platform engine and games out there on the market for > the blind community. I'm one game developer that whole heartedly > believes in a persons right to freedom of choice. > Anyway, as I've said many times on list already the cross-platform > version of the game is personally motivated and not commercially > motivated. I don't always use Windows, and I consider it my second > operating system and not my primary operating system. As a result my > priorities are vastly different from the huge Windows market out there > that have a GMA Tank Commander, Shades of Doom, Sarah, and dozens of > other good games for their platform of choice. What high quality > accessible games do we non-Windows users have? > As I have also said before it is not because Linux or Mac OS are bad > operating systems. Quite the contrary both have a lot to offer a VI > computer user. The access on both operating systems is rapidly > catching up with Windows accessibility and now is the time people have > a real choice in the software they want to use on their computer. VI > computer users are no longer bound to owning and using Microsoft > Windows because it is "the most accessible option out there," nor are > we forced into paying hundreds of dollars on a screen reader like Jaws > or Window-Eyes. For the first time in history companies like Cononical > and Apple have addressed accessibility issues by incorperating a full > fledged screen reader, magnification software, etc into the operating > system itself saving us hundreds of dollars in access software alone. > All of this is well and good, but the majority of game developers, and > some users, are of a "just release it for Windows" mentality. They are > far too willing to surrender their rights to choice for convenience > sake. If I were not so passionate about this maybe I would cave into > popular opinion, but I am passionate about this. I really believe we > all have a right to have not only accessible games, but they should be > available for Mac OS and Linux just as they are for x number of > Windows users. Of course, that isn't going to happen, because there > are far too few developers that have a personal stake in the matter or > the skills to do what I do. > Sadly far too many accessible game developers have chosen to take a > strictly Microsoft path, and have adopted proprietary languages like > Visual Basic. Until they begin writing their games in Python, Java, or > maybe C++ there never can be games for other platforms. That's why I > have chosen to take a personal stand against that very problem. > > Cheers! > > > On 10/29/10, william lomas wrote: >> i'd have just ignored cross platform really and just finish it up and >> release the game, since another year has gone without the full release of >> this title > > --- > Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org > If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to > gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. > You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at > http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. > All messages are archived and can be searched and read at > http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. > If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the > list, > please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr.
Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes
I found that a strange response, too, that was a complete break from the logical reasons why the cross platform project is in process. --- Shepherds are the best beasts! - Original Message - From: "Thomas Ward" To: "Gamers Discussion list" Sent: Tuesday, November 02, 2010 12:41 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes Hi Will, I kind of find that surprising coming from you since you are one of the Mac OS supporters. You of all people know the importance of getting a cross-platform engine and games out there on the market for the blind community. I'm one game developer that whole heartedly believes in a persons right to freedom of choice. Anyway, as I've said many times on list already the cross-platform version of the game is personally motivated and not commercially motivated. I don't always use Windows, and I consider it my second operating system and not my primary operating system. As a result my priorities are vastly different from the huge Windows market out there that have a GMA Tank Commander, Shades of Doom, Sarah, and dozens of other good games for their platform of choice. What high quality accessible games do we non-Windows users have? As I have also said before it is not because Linux or Mac OS are bad operating systems. Quite the contrary both have a lot to offer a VI computer user. The access on both operating systems is rapidly catching up with Windows accessibility and now is the time people have a real choice in the software they want to use on their computer. VI computer users are no longer bound to owning and using Microsoft Windows because it is "the most accessible option out there," nor are we forced into paying hundreds of dollars on a screen reader like Jaws or Window-Eyes. For the first time in history companies like Cononical and Apple have addressed accessibility issues by incorperating a full fledged screen reader, magnification software, etc into the operating system itself saving us hundreds of dollars in access software alone. All of this is well and good, but the majority of game developers, and some users, are of a "just release it for Windows" mentality. They are far too willing to surrender their rights to choice for convenience sake. If I were not so passionate about this maybe I would cave into popular opinion, but I am passionate about this. I really believe we all have a right to have not only accessible games, but they should be available for Mac OS and Linux just as they are for x number of Windows users. Of course, that isn't going to happen, because there are far too few developers that have a personal stake in the matter or the skills to do what I do. Sadly far too many accessible game developers have chosen to take a strictly Microsoft path, and have adopted proprietary languages like Visual Basic. Until they begin writing their games in Python, Java, or maybe C++ there never can be games for other platforms. That's why I have chosen to take a personal stand against that very problem. Cheers! On 10/29/10, william lomas wrote: i'd have just ignored cross platform really and just finish it up and release the game, since another year has gone without the full release of this title --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes
Hi Will, I kind of find that surprising coming from you since you are one of the Mac OS supporters. You of all people know the importance of getting a cross-platform engine and games out there on the market for the blind community. I'm one game developer that whole heartedly believes in a persons right to freedom of choice. Anyway, as I've said many times on list already the cross-platform version of the game is personally motivated and not commercially motivated. I don't always use Windows, and I consider it my second operating system and not my primary operating system. As a result my priorities are vastly different from the huge Windows market out there that have a GMA Tank Commander, Shades of Doom, Sarah, and dozens of other good games for their platform of choice. What high quality accessible games do we non-Windows users have? As I have also said before it is not because Linux or Mac OS are bad operating systems. Quite the contrary both have a lot to offer a VI computer user. The access on both operating systems is rapidly catching up with Windows accessibility and now is the time people have a real choice in the software they want to use on their computer. VI computer users are no longer bound to owning and using Microsoft Windows because it is "the most accessible option out there," nor are we forced into paying hundreds of dollars on a screen reader like Jaws or Window-Eyes. For the first time in history companies like Cononical and Apple have addressed accessibility issues by incorperating a full fledged screen reader, magnification software, etc into the operating system itself saving us hundreds of dollars in access software alone. All of this is well and good, but the majority of game developers, and some users, are of a "just release it for Windows" mentality. They are far too willing to surrender their rights to choice for convenience sake. If I were not so passionate about this maybe I would cave into popular opinion, but I am passionate about this. I really believe we all have a right to have not only accessible games, but they should be available for Mac OS and Linux just as they are for x number of Windows users. Of course, that isn't going to happen, because there are far too few developers that have a personal stake in the matter or the skills to do what I do. Sadly far too many accessible game developers have chosen to take a strictly Microsoft path, and have adopted proprietary languages like Visual Basic. Until they begin writing their games in Python, Java, or maybe C++ there never can be games for other platforms. That's why I have chosen to take a personal stand against that very problem. Cheers! On 10/29/10, william lomas wrote: > i'd have just ignored cross platform really and just finish it up and > release the game, since another year has gone without the full release of > this title --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes
i'd have just ignored cross platform really and just finish it up and release
the game, since another year has gone without the full release of this title
On Oct 29, 2010, at 4:52 PM, Charles Rivard wrote:
> Sounds like this is going to be a time consuming, troublesome, pain in the
> buns, mess that should work out in the long run. It is good, though, that
> you have found where that blue screen bug was.
>
> ---
> Shepherds are the best beasts!
> - Original Message - From: "Thomas Ward"
> To: "Gamers Discussion list"
> Sent: Friday, October 29, 2010 9:19 AM
> Subject: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes
>
>
>> Hi everyone,
>> At last I have located the cause of the blue screen. This morning i
>> did a step by step debug of the ExitProgram code when the Visual C++
>> debugger began giving me the exact error codes we are seeing in the
>> dump files. So obviously I know what the debugger is seeing and we
>> have been experiencing is the same problem. Fortunately or
>> unfortunately, depending on how you see it, the error is not in the
>> game engine itself. So I'm not totally crazy and am not actually at
>> fault here. The bug seams to be located in the SFML libraries
>> themselves, the Windows SFML libraries to be more specific.
>> With this in mind I think my alternatives are pretty clear. Since SFML
>> appears to be the cause of the blue screen on Windows operating
>> systems I'm going to have to create two different builds of the
>> Genesis Engine. One designed for Windows operating systems using
>> DirectX, Sapi, and other Windos specific APIs. The second using SFML,
>> Speech-Dispatcher, and Linux specific APIs. Although I'm not exactly
>> overly thrilled about this alternative I do see that this probably is
>> the best option in the long run.
>> For one thing I've known for quite a while now that developing a
>> cross-platform game engine would be what I call a "lowest common
>> denominator" approach. What I mean by that is that often times
>> operating systems are so different from a programming standpoint that
>> whatever I did I'd have to use only coding practices, development
>> libraries, etc that all the operating systems have in common like
>> SFML. Unfortunately, this doesn't always work out that well in
>> practice.
>> For example, Wwhile Microsoft Windows is written in C++ Windows
>> applications written in C++ are far different from an application
>> written in C++ for Linux. Thanks to Microsoft's Windows API, which is
>> required for Windows applications, they have added a lot of
>> pproprietary functions, data types, headers, etc that are totally
>> different from those used by anyone else. That obviously makes it
>> difficult to create cross-platform software because the developer
>> constantly has to sidestep and avoid anything that is Windows, Linux,
>> or Mac specific as much as humanly possible.
>> To give a simple example here let's consider the main function. In
>> most cases you can start a C++ program with the main function like
>> this.
>>
>> int main (int argc, char** argv)
>> {
>> // Add initialization code here
>> return 0;
>> }
>>
>> That is the most common way to start a C++ application. Most platforms
>> supports this, but on Windows only commandline programs begin with the
>> main function. For full blown Windows applications every C++ program
>> begins with the WinMain() function which is naturally only supported
>> on Microsoft Windows of course. It looks something like this.
>>
>> int APIENTRY _tWinMain (HINSTANCE hInstance,
>> HINSTANCE hPrevInstance, LPTSTR lpCmdLine, int nCmdShow)
>> {
>> // Add initialization code here
>> return 0;
>> }
>>
>> Obviously right off the bat we have a problem with cross-platform
>> compatibility. Windows and a Linux application don't even use the same
>> main function which is something a cross-platform developer has to get
>> around. Usually, the quickest way to solve this problem is to create a
>> WinMain() function that calls the standard C++ main() function to
>> perform program initialization. It isn't exactly hard to do, but is
>> still a hastle because Windows requires something extra to properly
>> initialize the program. The differences between Windows applications
>> and Linux applications don't stop there.
>> In terms of programming games this gets to be more complicated,
>> because we are dealing with various APIs to handle graphics, input,
>> audio, networking, etc. While cross-platform APIs like SFML and SDL
>> do exist they are also built with the lowest common denominator in
>> mind. They don't always offer the flashier features you might see in a
>> platform specific API like DirectX.
>> The best example I can think of is input handling. SFML and SDL use an
>> event driven input system which means it polls the operating system
>> for Windows events and acts upon a key press or key released event.
>> This is often quite slow because it has to wait for the event message
>> to be processed th
Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes
Hi tom. I freely admit that while I have a reasonable theoretical knolidge of what does what, both from playing games, reading articals and chats with my friend who has an msc in computer science and currently works as a professional software designer, I am a lot less clear on practically how anything works, - mostly because I decided that trying to learn a programming language (even with the assistance of bgt), would just not be possible in terms of time and energy along side writing my phd thesis and some of the on stage things I do. I may well look into doing something with programming in a couple of years when I'm finished (though I'm also considdering stage school as well), but for now as you said, I do tend to overestimate how difficult a given thing is to do. converting an engine to run on two different platforms using two different sets of audio libraries does indeed sound quite a task, - especially given the incompatibilities betwene the two os. so, the upshot of all this is, I'm glad it'll be less pain than I thought. all the best, Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes
Hi Hayden, Well, the two engines are fairly close. Most of the classes are the same, and others are similar enough that only miner changes are required. As I mentioned earlier the two engines, the Windows version that uses DirectX and the Linux version that uses SFML, were to a large part developed at the same time. However, earlier versions of the Linux engine used SDL, but over the past couple of months I have converted it to SFML. The point I want to get at is since July I have worked specifically on the Linux version of the game engine adding features to it, fixing bugs, this and that, and then cross compiled it on Windows for MOTA beta 14, 15, and 16. Now, that I know SFML has problems with various vidio drivers for Windows I can't use the cross-platform engine on Windows. The problem is from a development standpoint the Windows engine, using DirectX, is three months out of date. Every bug I fixed, every feature I added, etc to the cross-platform engine is missing from the DirectX version. What I have to do in order to compile MOTA beta 16 using the DirectX version of the engine is to upgrade the engine so that it has all the functions, features, etc as the Linux version. Make sense? Cheers! On 10/29/10, Hayden Presley wrote: > Hi Thomas, > Just curious, but how incompatible is your old Genisus Engine, the one you > used for BETA 13, and the current one? > > Best Regards, > Hayden --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes
Hi Hayden, Well, right now I'm aiming for 10initial levels for 1.0, but I hope to add a few more in a future update. Eventually, perhaps 12 levels in all when the game is finally completed. On 10/29/10, Hayden Presley wrote: > Hi Thomas, > I thought there were 10 levels in MOTA...what are levels 11 and 12? > > Best Regards, > Hayden --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes
Hi Dark, No problem. It seams my last post confused a lot of people as to the status of things right now, and I didn't make myself clear. A lot of people are unaware of the fact since December or so I have been writing the majority of the Genesis Engine and MOTA on a Linux system, and then porting the code to Windows 7. Not the other way around. In fact, I got an e-mail this morning from a concerned gamer who was under the assumption I'd have to write two completely new game engines. that's certainly not what I meant in my prier post, but that's how he took it. The fact is there is already a Linux engine using SFML 1.6, developed at the same time as the Windos engine that uses DirectX, and the Windows engine that uses DirectX. Both of these engines already exists, and are more or less stable. Right now all I want to do is modify a few things to make some of the class methods between the two different engines more compatible so I don't have to change anything in the MOTA source code to compile it with either game engine. As for there having been a million rewrites perhaps it looks that way from the outside, but in actuality that is a misconception. From the beginning I wrote the Genesis Engine in C# .NET, and the majority of development has been done in that language. In late 2008 I did a partial port from .NET to Java to see how MOTA might run using Java, and I wasn't overly thrilled with the results so went back to .NET. However, in December 2009 I began converting everything to C++, and that is the first and only time I have done a complete rewrite of the game and source code. If I might forward an explanation for the confusion here I'm the kind of person who likes to think outloud so to speak. I tend to openly discuss my ideas, discuss different options/possibilities I'd like to try, etc and sometimes that confuses people who don't really know what I'm talking about or what I am saying really means. For example, let's say I were going to replace SFML with DirectX. Right off the bat a non-programmer might assume this is some complex task, requiring weeks of work, and that I'd have to rewrite my engine to do it. The reality is only certain classes in the engine that handles input, audio, networking, etc would have to be rewritten. Yes, it would certainly take a couple of days to do it, but not weeks or months of work. Definitely nothing as difficult as rewriting the entire engine from scratch would take. However, in my openness to say what is exactly going on, why this or that is taking time, it sounds like I'm doing a lot more rewrites etc than necessary. In reality I'm probably just thinking about upgrading or modifying a certain section of the engine or game. Not necessarily rewriting the entire thing from scratch. Cheers! On 10/30/10, dark wrote: > Hi tom. > > appologies, I wasn't actually aware the lynux port of the engine was in so > much a finished state anyway and only required miner upgrades to lynux > specific rather than cross platform components, that does indeed put things > in a rather different light. > > As regards the Lynux issue generally, I do very much take the point that for > a lynux user (such as yourself), there are few available accessible games > and making more of them is a distinctly good idea. > > However from what you initially said, I got the impression that this meant a > lot of additional work (certainly more than a week), on a lynux port. > > as i said I do understand the point of this, however it has sometimes > appeared that Mota and the genesis engine has gone through about a million > rewrites in various languages. I certainly wouldn't call this goofing off, > sinse I do have an idea of the work involved, but I will freely admit that > sometimes I have felt that Mota's developement has been more involved with > rewriting the existing content of the game than creating new. > > I really didn't intend this to be un pleasant, but I have felt a bit > concerned about the time management in the developement of Mota. > > Hopefullly, sinse you originally wrote the game on lynux as you said > (another thing I also admit I wasn't aware of), this shouldn't be as time > consuming as some of the other rewrites to Mota. > > > Looking forward to playing the game. > > all the best, > > Dark. > --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes
I can understand that, especially considering how keen Thomas is to get this project off! his back. We are the Knights who say...Ni! - Original Message - From: "dark" To: "Gamers Discussion list" Sent: Saturday, October 30, 2010 12:40 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes Hi tom. appologies, I wasn't actually aware the lynux port of the engine was in so much a finished state anyway and only required miner upgrades to lynux specific rather than cross platform components, that does indeed put things in a rather different light. As regards the Lynux issue generally, I do very much take the point that for a lynux user (such as yourself), there are few available accessible games and making more of them is a distinctly good idea. However from what you initially said, I got the impression that this meant a lot of additional work (certainly more than a week), on a lynux port. as i said I do understand the point of this, however it has sometimes appeared that Mota and the genesis engine has gone through about a million rewrites in various languages. I certainly wouldn't call this goofing off, sinse I do have an idea of the work involved, but I will freely admit that sometimes I have felt that Mota's developement has been more involved with rewriting the existing content of the game than creating new. I really didn't intend this to be un pleasant, but I have felt a bit concerned about the time management in the developement of Mota. Hopefullly, sinse you originally wrote the game on lynux as you said (another thing I also admit I wasn't aware of), this shouldn't be as time consuming as some of the other rewrites to Mota. Looking forward to playing the game. all the best, Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes
Hi tom. appologies, I wasn't actually aware the lynux port of the engine was in so much a finished state anyway and only required miner upgrades to lynux specific rather than cross platform components, that does indeed put things in a rather different light. As regards the Lynux issue generally, I do very much take the point that for a lynux user (such as yourself), there are few available accessible games and making more of them is a distinctly good idea. However from what you initially said, I got the impression that this meant a lot of additional work (certainly more than a week), on a lynux port. as i said I do understand the point of this, however it has sometimes appeared that Mota and the genesis engine has gone through about a million rewrites in various languages. I certainly wouldn't call this goofing off, sinse I do have an idea of the work involved, but I will freely admit that sometimes I have felt that Mota's developement has been more involved with rewriting the existing content of the game than creating new. I really didn't intend this to be un pleasant, but I have felt a bit concerned about the time management in the developement of Mota. Hopefullly, sinse you originally wrote the game on lynux as you said (another thing I also admit I wasn't aware of), this shouldn't be as time consuming as some of the other rewrites to Mota. Looking forward to playing the game. all the best, Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes
Just a guess: More challenging and interesting? (grin of anticipation) --- Shepherds are the best beasts! - Original Message - From: "Hayden Presley" To: "'Gamers Discussion list'" Sent: Friday, October 29, 2010 7:03 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes Hi Thomas, I thought there were 10 levels in MOTA...what are levels 11 and 12? Best Regards, Hayden -Original Message- From: gamers-boun...@audyssey.org [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Ward Sent: Friday, October 29, 2010 6:56 PM To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes Hi Dark, No offense, but that's not quite right. Some of the things you said is just not correct. Let me try and clarify here. Dark wrote: I may be wrong, but i do seem to remember you originally writing using direct X, then changing your mind to include cross platform support. My reply: You are missing some of the facts here. When I began converting the Genesis Engine from .NET to C++ I first did so by using the SDL cross-platform libraries. I did a lot of the early testing of the new engine on Linux rather than Windows. However, as I was having some technical issues with the cross-platform engine I decided to create a Windows specific version to market to Windows users until i could resolve those technical issues. Once I discovered SFML and added it to the cross-platform engine I decided to release the game using the new engine. So my point here is that my intentions were for a cross-platform version of the game all along. Clear back when i was using .NET I had been tinkering with a cross-platform engine using Mono 2.6 and SDL .NET for Linux. I've always had this in mind. It is just that I was focused on trying to target the Windows market which is my biggest market, and have not released the Linux specific versions before now. Dark wrote: There then followed a period when you seemed to go through a number of rewrites both of mota and of the genesis engine generally. My reply: For the most part that is true. One of the down sides to being skilld in several different programming languages is deciding on one to actually use. I know Visual Basic .NET, C# .NET, C++, Java, Python, etc. I wanted to know how the same game performed in each language and which APIs would give me the best results. Plus I wanted to find the right combonation that will work on Windows and Linux. I've learned a lot, but to an outsider, someone who isn't a programmer, what I'm doing must look like goofing off. To put this in some perspective when I took over Montezuma's Revenge and Raceway I had just started USA Games. I really hadn't decided on what I'd use, but was pretty sure I'd use Managed DirectX and the .Net Framework. Well, in 2007 Microsoft dropped Managed DirectX like a hot potato and in 2008 had replaced DirectSound with XAudio2, etc. Everything I had decided upon had just ben dropped by Microsoft and I was litterally back at the drawing board. However, I forged on with the .NET Framework and DirectX until I discovered wonder of wonders that Managed DirectX is buggy. I had to go to C++to fix it, or adopt something else like SlimDX. I chose just to use C++ and native DirectX libraries. Dark wrote: Now however, you state that you are rewriting the windows engine to use direct X, and then writing a separate lynux engine. My responce: I think you are confused what I'm talking about here. I don't have to rewrite anything. I have a fully operational Windows engine that uses DirectX, PB Streemway, etc which MOTA beta 13 used. All I need to do is upgrade or modify it with some of the changes the cross-platform engine has, and recompile MOTA beta 16 using the Windows engine. That's not as bad as it sounds. Although, it will take a week or so to make the necessary updates. As far as a Linux engine goes I've already got one. The cross-platform engine beta 14, 15, and beta 16 currently uses works fine on Linux. So there is no need to do anything to the cross-platform engine to make it run on Linux. It already does just fine. Dark wrote: this is not intended to be rude or in any way be a personal attack, however, to put it bluntly, I wish youd just finish the game! My reply: Yeah, I'm sure you do. Believe me when I say I wish I was done with it too. Problem is I thought for sure the engine was done around beta 15, but now discovered this blasted bug in SFML that has caused me no end to grief. If it weren't for that bug I'd be working on levels 3 through 12 right now. Dark wrote: While I understand more people are using lynux, I wonder if, from a utilitarian perspective, spending this amount of time and trouble on a lynux port was actually worth it. My reply: Yes, from my point of view it is worth it. It doesn't matter if there is one Linux user or one million Linux users playing my games, becaus
Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes
Hi Thomas, I thought there were 10 levels in MOTA...what are levels 11 and 12? Best Regards, Hayden -Original Message- From: gamers-boun...@audyssey.org [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Ward Sent: Friday, October 29, 2010 6:56 PM To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes Hi Dark, No offense, but that's not quite right. Some of the things you said is just not correct. Let me try and clarify here. Dark wrote: I may be wrong, but i do seem to remember you originally writing using direct X, then changing your mind to include cross platform support. My reply: You are missing some of the facts here. When I began converting the Genesis Engine from .NET to C++ I first did so by using the SDL cross-platform libraries. I did a lot of the early testing of the new engine on Linux rather than Windows. However, as I was having some technical issues with the cross-platform engine I decided to create a Windows specific version to market to Windows users until i could resolve those technical issues. Once I discovered SFML and added it to the cross-platform engine I decided to release the game using the new engine. So my point here is that my intentions were for a cross-platform version of the game all along. Clear back when i was using .NET I had been tinkering with a cross-platform engine using Mono 2.6 and SDL .NET for Linux. I've always had this in mind. It is just that I was focused on trying to target the Windows market which is my biggest market, and have not released the Linux specific versions before now. Dark wrote: There then followed a period when you seemed to go through a number of rewrites both of mota and of the genesis engine generally. My reply: For the most part that is true. One of the down sides to being skilld in several different programming languages is deciding on one to actually use. I know Visual Basic .NET, C# .NET, C++, Java, Python, etc. I wanted to know how the same game performed in each language and which APIs would give me the best results. Plus I wanted to find the right combonation that will work on Windows and Linux. I've learned a lot, but to an outsider, someone who isn't a programmer, what I'm doing must look like goofing off. To put this in some perspective when I took over Montezuma's Revenge and Raceway I had just started USA Games. I really hadn't decided on what I'd use, but was pretty sure I'd use Managed DirectX and the .Net Framework. Well, in 2007 Microsoft dropped Managed DirectX like a hot potato and in 2008 had replaced DirectSound with XAudio2, etc. Everything I had decided upon had just ben dropped by Microsoft and I was litterally back at the drawing board. However, I forged on with the .NET Framework and DirectX until I discovered wonder of wonders that Managed DirectX is buggy. I had to go to C++to fix it, or adopt something else like SlimDX. I chose just to use C++ and native DirectX libraries. Dark wrote: Now however, you state that you are rewriting the windows engine to use direct X, and then writing a separate lynux engine. My responce: I think you are confused what I'm talking about here. I don't have to rewrite anything. I have a fully operational Windows engine that uses DirectX, PB Streemway, etc which MOTA beta 13 used. All I need to do is upgrade or modify it with some of the changes the cross-platform engine has, and recompile MOTA beta 16 using the Windows engine. That's not as bad as it sounds. Although, it will take a week or so to make the necessary updates. As far as a Linux engine goes I've already got one. The cross-platform engine beta 14, 15, and beta 16 currently uses works fine on Linux. So there is no need to do anything to the cross-platform engine to make it run on Linux. It already does just fine. Dark wrote: this is not intended to be rude or in any way be a personal attack, however, to put it bluntly, I wish youd just finish the game! My reply: Yeah, I'm sure you do. Believe me when I say I wish I was done with it too. Problem is I thought for sure the engine was done around beta 15, but now discovered this blasted bug in SFML that has caused me no end to grief. If it weren't for that bug I'd be working on levels 3 through 12 right now. Dark wrote: While I understand more people are using lynux, I wonder if, from a utilitarian perspective, spending this amount of time and trouble on a lynux port was actually worth it. My reply: Yes, from my point of view it is worth it. It doesn't matter if there is one Linux user or one million Linux users playing my games, because all along I created the Linux version for purely personal reasons. in fact, the only reason I create the games at all are for purely personal reasons for that matter. That reason is for my own personal pleasure. Without any personal satisfaction/pleasure I wouldn't bother spending any time writing acces
Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes
Hi Dark, No offense, but that's not quite right. Some of the things you said is just not correct. Let me try and clarify here. Dark wrote: I may be wrong, but i do seem to remember you originally writing using direct X, then changing your mind to include cross platform support. My reply: You are missing some of the facts here. When I began converting the Genesis Engine from .NET to C++ I first did so by using the SDL cross-platform libraries. I did a lot of the early testing of the new engine on Linux rather than Windows. However, as I was having some technical issues with the cross-platform engine I decided to create a Windows specific version to market to Windows users until i could resolve those technical issues. Once I discovered SFML and added it to the cross-platform engine I decided to release the game using the new engine. So my point here is that my intentions were for a cross-platform version of the game all along. Clear back when i was using .NET I had been tinkering with a cross-platform engine using Mono 2.6 and SDL .NET for Linux. I've always had this in mind. It is just that I was focused on trying to target the Windows market which is my biggest market, and have not released the Linux specific versions before now. Dark wrote: There then followed a period when you seemed to go through a number of rewrites both of mota and of the genesis engine generally. My reply: For the most part that is true. One of the down sides to being skilld in several different programming languages is deciding on one to actually use. I know Visual Basic .NET, C# .NET, C++, Java, Python, etc. I wanted to know how the same game performed in each language and which APIs would give me the best results. Plus I wanted to find the right combonation that will work on Windows and Linux. I've learned a lot, but to an outsider, someone who isn't a programmer, what I'm doing must look like goofing off. To put this in some perspective when I took over Montezuma's Revenge and Raceway I had just started USA Games. I really hadn't decided on what I'd use, but was pretty sure I'd use Managed DirectX and the .Net Framework. Well, in 2007 Microsoft dropped Managed DirectX like a hot potato and in 2008 had replaced DirectSound with XAudio2, etc. Everything I had decided upon had just ben dropped by Microsoft and I was litterally back at the drawing board. However, I forged on with the .NET Framework and DirectX until I discovered wonder of wonders that Managed DirectX is buggy. I had to go to C++to fix it, or adopt something else like SlimDX. I chose just to use C++ and native DirectX libraries. Dark wrote: Now however, you state that you are rewriting the windows engine to use direct X, and then writing a separate lynux engine. My responce: I think you are confused what I'm talking about here. I don't have to rewrite anything. I have a fully operational Windows engine that uses DirectX, PB Streemway, etc which MOTA beta 13 used. All I need to do is upgrade or modify it with some of the changes the cross-platform engine has, and recompile MOTA beta 16 using the Windows engine. That's not as bad as it sounds. Although, it will take a week or so to make the necessary updates. As far as a Linux engine goes I've already got one. The cross-platform engine beta 14, 15, and beta 16 currently uses works fine on Linux. So there is no need to do anything to the cross-platform engine to make it run on Linux. It already does just fine. Dark wrote: this is not intended to be rude or in any way be a personal attack, however, to put it bluntly, I wish youd just finish the game! My reply: Yeah, I'm sure you do. Believe me when I say I wish I was done with it too. Problem is I thought for sure the engine was done around beta 15, but now discovered this blasted bug in SFML that has caused me no end to grief. If it weren't for that bug I'd be working on levels 3 through 12 right now. Dark wrote: While I understand more people are using lynux, I wonder if, from a utilitarian perspective, spending this amount of time and trouble on a lynux port was actually worth it. My reply: Yes, from my point of view it is worth it. It doesn't matter if there is one Linux user or one million Linux users playing my games, because all along I created the Linux version for purely personal reasons. in fact, the only reason I create the games at all are for purely personal reasons for that matter. That reason is for my own personal pleasure. Without any personal satisfaction/pleasure I wouldn't bother spending any time writing accessible games. If I weren't using Linux personally I wouldn't have bothered creating a linux version in the first place. However, getting back to the point, you are speaking purely from a Windows user point of view. Let's face it you have games like Tank Commander, Shades of Doom, Super Liam, and loads of other accessible games all for Windows. If you went out and purchased a brand new MacBook with Mac OS, or purchased a new Del no
Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes
Hi Thomas, Just curious, but how incompatible is your old Genisus Engine, the one you used for BETA 13, and the current one? Best Regards, Hayden -Original Message- From: gamers-boun...@audyssey.org [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of dark Sent: Friday, October 29, 2010 10:42 AM To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes Hello Tom. while I certainly see the logic in what your doing, i can't help feel mildly disappointed. I understand that for people using lynux, a version of the game which can be played on their systems without need to use an emulator is an extremely good thing, and that this developement necessitates a great deal of work on your part due to incompatibility betwene the background libraries available for the two operating systems. however, having been present on the audeasy list through all the developemental phases of mota and the genesis engine, I can't help but feel this rewriting process has been somewhat circular, and in some ways detracts from the developement of what I personally, admittedly in my selfish position as a person who uses windows for convenience, see as the important thing, ie, having an interesting and ground breaking audio game to play, and indeed an engine promising more games in the future. I may be wrong, but i do seem to remember you originally writing using direct X, then changing your mind to include cross platform support. This, - as I said, i can see as logical given that there are audio game players using lynux.. There then followed a period when you seemed to go through a number of rewrites both of mota and of the genesis engine generally. Once however you'd settled on things and were in the process of writing up more game content and the 3D version of the game, I was hopeful that this had come to an end and finally! i'd be able to get a look at the deeper levels of the tomb and see what else Athena had in store. Now however, you state that you are rewriting the windows engine to use direct X, and then writing a separate lynux engine. this is not intended to be rude or in any way be a personal attack, however, to put it bluntly, I wish youd just finish the game! While I understand more people are using lynux, I wonder if, from a utilitarian perspective, spending this amount of time and trouble on a lynux port was actually worth it, appologies to lynux users, but given limited time and resources, and given the amount of trouble the lynux port seems to have caused, I do find myself wondering if this is actually such a good idea afterall, indeed I seem to remember Tom's customer survey suggesting that only a minority of people were concerned with lynux compatibility. I am sorry to Tom,and to those people such as peter who use lynux, this is in no way intended as an attack or an insult. As it stands, obviously because of the blue screen bug, you will need to return to direct X for the windows port, which is unavoidable, but I do find myself wondering if the second rewrite with specifically lynux components is as necessary a matter if it is going to slow down developement even further. As I said, I'm really! wanting just to play the game. Sorry if this came across as rude. all the best, Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes
true dark but the way I see it in order to be going foreward in game development as a hole we need to develop the tech to do it not the crappy backward tech that all us blind people do. I know it sounds harsh but we need to catch up with the sighted in any way we can and for a bit we were almost there. We don't have big multioplayer servers, but we are using almost the same tech they are. With the event of changing systems we just have to move foreward, I don't like it but thats the way the cooky crumbles. At 04:41 a.m. 30/10/2010, you wrote: Hello Tom. while I certainly see the logic in what your doing, i can't help feel mildly disappointed. I understand that for people using lynux, a version of the game which can be played on their systems without need to use an emulator is an extremely good thing, and that this developement necessitates a great deal of work on your part due to incompatibility betwene the background libraries available for the two operating systems. however, having been present on the audeasy list through all the developemental phases of mota and the genesis engine, I can't help but feel this rewriting process has been somewhat circular, and in some ways detracts from the developement of what I personally, admittedly in my selfish position as a person who uses windows for convenience, see as the important thing, ie, having an interesting and ground breaking audio game to play, and indeed an engine promising more games in the future. I may be wrong, but i do seem to remember you originally writing using direct X, then changing your mind to include cross platform support. This, - as I said, i can see as logical given that there are audio game players using lynux.. There then followed a period when you seemed to go through a number of rewrites both of mota and of the genesis engine generally. Once however you'd settled on things and were in the process of writing up more game content and the 3D version of the game, I was hopeful that this had come to an end and finally! i'd be able to get a look at the deeper levels of the tomb and see what else Athena had in store. Now however, you state that you are rewriting the windows engine to use direct X, and then writing a separate lynux engine. this is not intended to be rude or in any way be a personal attack, however, to put it bluntly, I wish youd just finish the game! While I understand more people are using lynux, I wonder if, from a utilitarian perspective, spending this amount of time and trouble on a lynux port was actually worth it, appologies to lynux users, but given limited time and resources, and given the amount of trouble the lynux port seems to have caused, I do find myself wondering if this is actually such a good idea afterall, indeed I seem to remember Tom's customer survey suggesting that only a minority of people were concerned with lynux compatibility. I am sorry to Tom,and to those people such as peter who use lynux, this is in no way intended as an attack or an insult. As it stands, obviously because of the blue screen bug, you will need to return to direct X for the windows port, which is unavoidable, but I do find myself wondering if the second rewrite with specifically lynux components is as necessary a matter if it is going to slow down developement even further. As I said, I'm really! wanting just to play the game. Sorry if this came across as rude. all the best, Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes
Hello Tom. while I certainly see the logic in what your doing, i can't help feel mildly disappointed. I understand that for people using lynux, a version of the game which can be played on their systems without need to use an emulator is an extremely good thing, and that this developement necessitates a great deal of work on your part due to incompatibility betwene the background libraries available for the two operating systems. however, having been present on the audeasy list through all the developemental phases of mota and the genesis engine, I can't help but feel this rewriting process has been somewhat circular, and in some ways detracts from the developement of what I personally, admittedly in my selfish position as a person who uses windows for convenience, see as the important thing, ie, having an interesting and ground breaking audio game to play, and indeed an engine promising more games in the future. I may be wrong, but i do seem to remember you originally writing using direct X, then changing your mind to include cross platform support. This, - as I said, i can see as logical given that there are audio game players using lynux.. There then followed a period when you seemed to go through a number of rewrites both of mota and of the genesis engine generally. Once however you'd settled on things and were in the process of writing up more game content and the 3D version of the game, I was hopeful that this had come to an end and finally! i'd be able to get a look at the deeper levels of the tomb and see what else Athena had in store. Now however, you state that you are rewriting the windows engine to use direct X, and then writing a separate lynux engine. this is not intended to be rude or in any way be a personal attack, however, to put it bluntly, I wish youd just finish the game! While I understand more people are using lynux, I wonder if, from a utilitarian perspective, spending this amount of time and trouble on a lynux port was actually worth it, appologies to lynux users, but given limited time and resources, and given the amount of trouble the lynux port seems to have caused, I do find myself wondering if this is actually such a good idea afterall, indeed I seem to remember Tom's customer survey suggesting that only a minority of people were concerned with lynux compatibility. I am sorry to Tom,and to those people such as peter who use lynux, this is in no way intended as an attack or an insult. As it stands, obviously because of the blue screen bug, you will need to return to direct X for the windows port, which is unavoidable, but I do find myself wondering if the second rewrite with specifically lynux components is as necessary a matter if it is going to slow down developement even further. As I said, I'm really! wanting just to play the game. Sorry if this came across as rude. all the best, Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes
Hi Phil, Sure. All of the contact information etc is right on the sfml-dev.org website. I've got plans to e-mail the guy who started SFML and see if he can figure out why SFML tends to cause Windows to blue screen where I don't get so much as a seg fault on Linux with beta 16. On 10/29/10, Phil Vlasak wrote: > Hi Thomas, > Is there a way to contact those working on the SFML libraries > about the bug? > > > --- > Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org > If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to > gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. > You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at > http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. > All messages are archived and can be searched and read at > http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. > If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, > please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. > --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes
Hi Zack, Oh, I intend on reporting my findings to the SFML developers as I think they need to investigate this problem further. As I have mentioned several times the game doesn't crash like this on Linux at all. In fact beta 16 runs extremely good on Linux. Recompile it for Windows using MinGW and we get that weird error where the system blue screens and restarts. I recompiled the engine with Visual Studio 2008 Pro this morning and it told me the error was in sfml-window.dll. So whatever the bug is Windows absolutely hates it, and it forces a system to restart. If it were not for this blue screen problem I'd just stick with SFML for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Of course, there is SDL, which I could use instead of SFML, but I've never been all that impressed with it. For one thing SDL Mixer is not in the same league as OpenAL or DirectSound. When it comes to virtual 3d audio SDL Mixer's Mix_SetPosition function is barely mor than simply controlling the sound's pan and volume settings. It is far from realistic, and just doesn't render the same effect as what OpenAL or DirectSound can do. Add in the fact there are no custom DSP effects, no way to control the sound's pitch, it is not really that great for rendering audio. It is fine for some games like STFC, SoundRTS, or whatever but not for the kind of engine I'm working on. Then, we have the issue of input. Ever since I switched to SFML for keyboard input I have been constantly bombarded by people wanting to know why they can't runn and pick up items at the same time. Neither SDL or SFML will allow them to do that because keyboard input is handled completely different. I believe that most Windows users would prefer DirectInput as they will stop asking me about fixing the keyboard input which doesn't work they way they think it should. Smile. On 10/29/10, Zachary Kline wrote: > Hi Thomas, > Is it perhaps worth reporting the bug you've found to the sfml developers? > I would absolutely hate to have to go through the extra work of > maintaining two separate versions of the game engine unless there was > absolutely no chance of getting the underlying problem in the > cross platform library solved. > Best, > Zack. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes
Hi Thomas, Is there a way to contact those working on the SFML libraries about the bug? --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes
Hi Charles, Yeah, you could say that. I'm very unhappy of having to go back to DirectX to support Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7, but if that is the most stable way of resolving the problem that's what I have to do. Managing to engines is definitely not my idea of fun, but if I want to support Windows with any degree of reliability and stability that's what I have to do. Smile. On 10/29/10, Charles Rivard wrote: > Sounds like this is going to be a time consuming, troublesome, pain in the > buns, mess that should work out in the long run. It is good, though, that > you have found where that blue screen bug was. > > --- > Shepherds are the best beasts! --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes
Hi Thomas, Is it perhaps worth reporting the bug you've found to the sfml developers? I would absolutely hate to have to go through the extra work of maintaining two separate versions of the game engine unless there was absolutely no chance of getting the underlying problem in the cross platform library solved. Best, Zack. On Fri, 29 Oct 2010, Thomas Ward wrote: Hi Bryan, That's hard to say. Certainly it will add some additional development time since I'm dealing with completely different APIs and platforms now, but long term I don't think it will be too bad. It is more a matter of the time spent up front developing both versions of the engine and then making sure the same game code will compile and run correctly with witchever version of the engine is being used. For example, the Windows version of MOTA could use the DirectSound stereo Pan control. Unfortunately, the pan control takes values ranging from -1 to 1 and OpenAL uses OpenAL takes a 3d coordinate to render the audio. This is something that can't be easily emulated through a simple class member because the function parameters are completely different. One way to resolve this issue is to forget the DirectSound stereo pan control and route audio directly through the DirectSound 3d interface, but we are right back to no simple stereo pan control either. In order to insure compatibility between DirectSound and OpenAL versions of the engine I'd have to pan sounds through a virtual 3d interface which works, but isn't as clean as the DirectSound pan control. So most of my time in the beginning will be trying to find ways to obtain the maximum compatibility between the two versions of the engine while at the same time make use of native APIs for the target platform. This will take some initial research and development time, but after it is ready it should be smooth sailing from there. Cheers! On 10/29/10, Bryan Peterson wrote: Sounds like the best approach, although for your sake I hope this won't add too much onto development time since I know how anxious you are to finally get this project off! your back and take that nice long break I'm sure you've been hankering for. And goodness knows you've more than earned it. We are the Knights who say...Ni! --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes
Sounds like this is going to be a time consuming, troublesome, pain in the
buns, mess that should work out in the long run. It is good, though, that
you have found where that blue screen bug was.
---
Shepherds are the best beasts!
- Original Message -
From: "Thomas Ward"
To: "Gamers Discussion list"
Sent: Friday, October 29, 2010 9:19 AM
Subject: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes
Hi everyone,
At last I have located the cause of the blue screen. This morning i
did a step by step debug of the ExitProgram code when the Visual C++
debugger began giving me the exact error codes we are seeing in the
dump files. So obviously I know what the debugger is seeing and we
have been experiencing is the same problem. Fortunately or
unfortunately, depending on how you see it, the error is not in the
game engine itself. So I'm not totally crazy and am not actually at
fault here. The bug seams to be located in the SFML libraries
themselves, the Windows SFML libraries to be more specific.
With this in mind I think my alternatives are pretty clear. Since SFML
appears to be the cause of the blue screen on Windows operating
systems I'm going to have to create two different builds of the
Genesis Engine. One designed for Windows operating systems using
DirectX, Sapi, and other Windos specific APIs. The second using SFML,
Speech-Dispatcher, and Linux specific APIs. Although I'm not exactly
overly thrilled about this alternative I do see that this probably is
the best option in the long run.
For one thing I've known for quite a while now that developing a
cross-platform game engine would be what I call a "lowest common
denominator" approach. What I mean by that is that often times
operating systems are so different from a programming standpoint that
whatever I did I'd have to use only coding practices, development
libraries, etc that all the operating systems have in common like
SFML. Unfortunately, this doesn't always work out that well in
practice.
For example, Wwhile Microsoft Windows is written in C++ Windows
applications written in C++ are far different from an application
written in C++ for Linux. Thanks to Microsoft's Windows API, which is
required for Windows applications, they have added a lot of
pproprietary functions, data types, headers, etc that are totally
different from those used by anyone else. That obviously makes it
difficult to create cross-platform software because the developer
constantly has to sidestep and avoid anything that is Windows, Linux,
or Mac specific as much as humanly possible.
To give a simple example here let's consider the main function. In
most cases you can start a C++ program with the main function like
this.
int main (int argc, char** argv)
{
// Add initialization code here
return 0;
}
That is the most common way to start a C++ application. Most platforms
supports this, but on Windows only commandline programs begin with the
main function. For full blown Windows applications every C++ program
begins with the WinMain() function which is naturally only supported
on Microsoft Windows of course. It looks something like this.
int APIENTRY _tWinMain (HINSTANCE hInstance,
HINSTANCE hPrevInstance, LPTSTR lpCmdLine, int nCmdShow)
{
// Add initialization code here
return 0;
}
Obviously right off the bat we have a problem with cross-platform
compatibility. Windows and a Linux application don't even use the same
main function which is something a cross-platform developer has to get
around. Usually, the quickest way to solve this problem is to create a
WinMain() function that calls the standard C++ main() function to
perform program initialization. It isn't exactly hard to do, but is
still a hastle because Windows requires something extra to properly
initialize the program. The differences between Windows applications
and Linux applications don't stop there.
In terms of programming games this gets to be more complicated,
because we are dealing with various APIs to handle graphics, input,
audio, networking, etc. While cross-platform APIs like SFML and SDL
do exist they are also built with the lowest common denominator in
mind. They don't always offer the flashier features you might see in a
platform specific API like DirectX.
The best example I can think of is input handling. SFML and SDL use an
event driven input system which means it polls the operating system
for Windows events and acts upon a key press or key released event.
This is often quite slow because it has to wait for the event message
to be processed through the operating systems message queue, and the
message queue was never designed for rapid key presses or to handle
more than two or three key down events at a time. This is why in MOTA
beta 15 it isn't possible to hold the arrow key down to walk and pres
enter to pick up something. Contrary to common belief that isn't a
bug, but the fault of the generic keyboard support SDL and SFMl uses
to maintain cross-platform compatibility.
On Windows Microsoft ha
Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes
Hi Bryan, That's hard to say. Certainly it will add some additional development time since I'm dealing with completely different APIs and platforms now, but long term I don't think it will be too bad. It is more a matter of the time spent up front developing both versions of the engine and then making sure the same game code will compile and run correctly with witchever version of the engine is being used. For example, the Windows version of MOTA could use the DirectSound stereo Pan control. Unfortunately, the pan control takes values ranging from -1 to 1 and OpenAL uses OpenAL takes a 3d coordinate to render the audio. This is something that can't be easily emulated through a simple class member because the function parameters are completely different. One way to resolve this issue is to forget the DirectSound stereo pan control and route audio directly through the DirectSound 3d interface, but we are right back to no simple stereo pan control either. In order to insure compatibility between DirectSound and OpenAL versions of the engine I'd have to pan sounds through a virtual 3d interface which works, but isn't as clean as the DirectSound pan control. So most of my time in the beginning will be trying to find ways to obtain the maximum compatibility between the two versions of the engine while at the same time make use of native APIs for the target platform. This will take some initial research and development time, but after it is ready it should be smooth sailing from there. Cheers! On 10/29/10, Bryan Peterson wrote: > Sounds like the best approach, although for your sake I hope this won't add > too much onto development time since I know how anxious you are to finally > get this project off! your back and take that nice long break I'm sure > you've been hankering for. And goodness knows you've more than earned it. > We are the Knights who say...Ni! --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes
Sounds like the best approach, although for your sake I hope this won't add
too much onto development time since I know how anxious you are to finally
get this project off! your back and take that nice long break I'm sure
you've been hankering for. And goodness knows you've more than earned it.
We are the Knights who say...Ni!
- Original Message -
From: "Thomas Ward"
To: "Gamers Discussion list"
Sent: Friday, October 29, 2010 8:19 AM
Subject: [Audyssey] MOTA Beta 16 Changes
Hi everyone,
At last I have located the cause of the blue screen. This morning i
did a step by step debug of the ExitProgram code when the Visual C++
debugger began giving me the exact error codes we are seeing in the
dump files. So obviously I know what the debugger is seeing and we
have been experiencing is the same problem. Fortunately or
unfortunately, depending on how you see it, the error is not in the
game engine itself. So I'm not totally crazy and am not actually at
fault here. The bug seams to be located in the SFML libraries
themselves, the Windows SFML libraries to be more specific.
With this in mind I think my alternatives are pretty clear. Since SFML
appears to be the cause of the blue screen on Windows operating
systems I'm going to have to create two different builds of the
Genesis Engine. One designed for Windows operating systems using
DirectX, Sapi, and other Windos specific APIs. The second using SFML,
Speech-Dispatcher, and Linux specific APIs. Although I'm not exactly
overly thrilled about this alternative I do see that this probably is
the best option in the long run.
For one thing I've known for quite a while now that developing a
cross-platform game engine would be what I call a "lowest common
denominator" approach. What I mean by that is that often times
operating systems are so different from a programming standpoint that
whatever I did I'd have to use only coding practices, development
libraries, etc that all the operating systems have in common like
SFML. Unfortunately, this doesn't always work out that well in
practice.
For example, Wwhile Microsoft Windows is written in C++ Windows
applications written in C++ are far different from an application
written in C++ for Linux. Thanks to Microsoft's Windows API, which is
required for Windows applications, they have added a lot of
pproprietary functions, data types, headers, etc that are totally
different from those used by anyone else. That obviously makes it
difficult to create cross-platform software because the developer
constantly has to sidestep and avoid anything that is Windows, Linux,
or Mac specific as much as humanly possible.
To give a simple example here let's consider the main function. In
most cases you can start a C++ program with the main function like
this.
int main (int argc, char** argv)
{
// Add initialization code here
return 0;
}
That is the most common way to start a C++ application. Most platforms
supports this, but on Windows only commandline programs begin with the
main function. For full blown Windows applications every C++ program
begins with the WinMain() function which is naturally only supported
on Microsoft Windows of course. It looks something like this.
int APIENTRY _tWinMain (HINSTANCE hInstance,
HINSTANCE hPrevInstance, LPTSTR lpCmdLine, int nCmdShow)
{
// Add initialization code here
return 0;
}
Obviously right off the bat we have a problem with cross-platform
compatibility. Windows and a Linux application don't even use the same
main function which is something a cross-platform developer has to get
around. Usually, the quickest way to solve this problem is to create a
WinMain() function that calls the standard C++ main() function to
perform program initialization. It isn't exactly hard to do, but is
still a hastle because Windows requires something extra to properly
initialize the program. The differences between Windows applications
and Linux applications don't stop there.
In terms of programming games this gets to be more complicated,
because we are dealing with various APIs to handle graphics, input,
audio, networking, etc. While cross-platform APIs like SFML and SDL
do exist they are also built with the lowest common denominator in
mind. They don't always offer the flashier features you might see in a
platform specific API like DirectX.
The best example I can think of is input handling. SFML and SDL use an
event driven input system which means it polls the operating system
for Windows events and acts upon a key press or key released event.
This is often quite slow because it has to wait for the event message
to be processed through the operating systems message queue, and the
message queue was never designed for rapid key presses or to handle
more than two or three key down events at a time. This is why in MOTA
beta 15 it isn't possible to hold the arrow key down to walk and pres
enter to pick up something. Contrary to common belief that isn't a
bug, but the fault of the generic
