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  • Worker roles in Windows Azure to host a multiplayer server

    - by MrWiggels
    I've been doing research on where to host a simple multi-player backend for a simple game I'm developing. So as a first choice I downloaded the Windows Azure SDK, which provides a nice and simple emulator environment where you can test out your application before uploading. I also download the Azure Social Game Toolkit (Visit), and followed as far as my understanding can take me. So, down to the main question. Is there anybody with experience developing Azure applications. I'm developing a Action RPG game, in a similar vein to Diablo III. I was thinking of putting up Matchmaking, Friends Lists, etc. Is there another way to connect to Azure services via something like UDP or TCP for sending packets or does everything have to go through HTTP requests? Is it even possible to use HTTP request/response for something like this? All game commands will be simple. Because the game server and the clients will be kept in-sync and will have deterministic actions, I'm just going to send actions like "Use Primary Skill" and "Use Secondary Skill". Any hints, ideas, light bulbs or a smack-in-the-face presentation will be much appreciated.

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  • Error X3650 when compiling shader in XNA

    - by Saikai
    I'm attempting to convert the XBDEV.NET Mosaic Shader for use in my XNA project and having trouble. The compiler errors out because of the half globals. At first I tried replacing the globals and just writing the variables explicitly in the code, but that garbles the Output. Next I tried replacing all the half with float vars, but that still garbles the resulting Image. I call the effect file from SpriteBatch.Begin(). Is there a way to convert this shader to the new pixel shader conventions? Are there any good tutorials for this topic? Here is the shader file for reference: /*****************************************************************************/ /* File: tiles.fx Details: Modified version of the NVIDIA Composer FX Demo Program 2004 Produces a tiled mosaic effect on the output. Requires: Vertex Shader 1.1 Pixel Shader 2.0 Modified by: [email protected] (www.xbdev.net) */ /*****************************************************************************/ float4 ClearColor : DIFFUSE = { 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f}; float ClearDepth = 1.0f; /******************************** TWEAKABLES *********************************/ half NumTiles = 40.0; half Threshhold = 0.15; half3 EdgeColor = {0.7f, 0.7f, 0.7f}; /*****************************************************************************/ texture SceneMap : RENDERCOLORTARGET < float2 ViewportRatio = { 1.0f, 1.0f }; int MIPLEVELS = 1; string format = "X8R8G8B8"; string UIWidget = "None"; >; sampler SceneSampler = sampler_state { texture = <SceneMap>; AddressU = CLAMP; AddressV = CLAMP; MIPFILTER = NONE; MINFILTER = LINEAR; MAGFILTER = LINEAR; }; /***************************** DATA STRUCTS **********************************/ struct vertexInput { half3 Position : POSITION; half3 TexCoord : TEXCOORD0; }; /* data passed from vertex shader to pixel shader */ struct vertexOutput { half4 HPosition : POSITION; half2 UV : TEXCOORD0; }; /******************************* Vertex shader *******************************/ vertexOutput VS_Quad( vertexInput IN) { vertexOutput OUT = (vertexOutput)0; OUT.HPosition = half4(IN.Position, 1); OUT.UV = IN.TexCoord.xy; return OUT; } /********************************** pixel shader *****************************/ half4 tilesPS(vertexOutput IN) : COLOR { half size = 1.0/NumTiles; half2 Pbase = IN.UV - fmod(IN.UV,size.xx); half2 PCenter = Pbase + (size/2.0).xx; half2 st = (IN.UV - Pbase)/size; half4 c1 = (half4)0; half4 c2 = (half4)0; half4 invOff = half4((1-EdgeColor),1); if (st.x > st.y) { c1 = invOff; } half threshholdB = 1.0 - Threshhold; if (st.x > threshholdB) { c2 = c1; } if (st.y > threshholdB) { c2 = c1; } half4 cBottom = c2; c1 = (half4)0; c2 = (half4)0; if (st.x > st.y) { c1 = invOff; } if (st.x < Threshhold) { c2 = c1; } if (st.y < Threshhold) { c2 = c1; } half4 cTop = c2; half4 tileColor = tex2D(SceneSampler,PCenter); half4 result = tileColor + cTop - cBottom; return result; } /*****************************************************************************/ technique tiles { pass p0 { VertexShader = compile vs_1_1 VS_Quad(); ZEnable = false; ZWriteEnable = false; CullMode = None; PixelShader = compile ps_2_0 tilesPS(); } }

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  • Event Driven Communication in Game Engine - Yes or No?

    - by Bunkai.Satori
    As I am reading book Game Coding Complete (http://www.amazon.com/Game-Coding-Complete-Third-McShaffry/dp/1584506806/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1295978774&sr=8-1), the author recommend Event Driven communication among the all game objects and modules. Basicaly, all the living game actors and object should communicate with the key modules (Physics, AI, Game Logic, Game View, etc..) via internal event messaging system. This would mean designing efficient event manager as well. My question is, whether this is proven and recommended approach. If it is not properly designed, it might mean consuming a lot of CPU cycles, which can be used elsewhere. This is especially true, if the game is targetted for mobile platform. What is your opinion and recommendation, please?

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  • XNA CustomModelAnimationSample problem

    - by Mentoliptus
    I downloaded the official tutorial from:CustomModelAnimationSample It works fine but when I try to replicate it in my project, it fails to load the Tag property in my model. Is found that the probelm is in the line: skinnedModel = Content.Load<Model>("DudeWalk"); This line loads the model from the DudeWalk.fbx file and with the custom SkinnedModelProcessor. It loads the animations data in the model. After the line the Tag property is full. I stepped into the method and it went to the custom ModelData class. I copied everything from the projects CustomModelAnimationWindows and CustomModelAnimationPipeline to my solution and set all the references. I tried the same line of code and couldn't step in the method. It called the default method or model constructor and after the line the model's Tag propetry was null. I have to load the model through my custom SkinnedModelProcessor class, but how I tell the game to use this class? In the tutroail CustomModelClass the line is changed to: model = Content.Load<CustomModel>("tank"); So I assumed that I have to set the generic type to a custom model class, but the first example works without it. If anyone has some useful advice or some other helpful link, I'll be happy to try it.

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  • Setting the values of a struct array from JS to GLSL

    - by mikidelux
    I've been trying to make a structure that will contain all the lights of my WebGL app, and I'm having troubles setting up it's values from JS. The structure is as follows: struct Light { vec4 position; vec4 ambient; vec4 diffuse; vec4 specular; vec3 spotDirection; float spotCutOff; float constantAttenuation; float linearAttenuation; float quadraticAttenuation; float spotExponent; float spotLightCosCutOff; }; uniform Light lights[numLights]; After testing LOTS of things I made it work but I'm not happy with the code I wrote: program.uniform.lights = []; program.uniform.lights.push({ position: "", diffuse: "", specular: "", ambient: "", spotDirection: "", spotCutOff: "", constantAttenuation: "", linearAttenuation: "", quadraticAttenuation: "", spotExponent: "", spotLightCosCutOff: "" }); program.uniform.lights[0].position = gl.getUniformLocation(program, "lights[0].position"); program.uniform.lights[0].diffuse = gl.getUniformLocation(program, "lights[0].diffuse"); program.uniform.lights[0].specular = gl.getUniformLocation(program, "lights[0].specular"); program.uniform.lights[0].ambient = gl.getUniformLocation(program, "lights[0].ambient"); ... and so on I'm sorry for making you look at this code, I know it's horrible but I can't find a better way. Is there a standard or recommended way of doing this properly? Can anyone enlighten me?

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  • Basics of drawing in 2d with OpenGL 3 shaders

    - by davidism
    I am new to OpenGL 3 and graphics programming, and want to create some basic 2d graphics. I have the following scenario of how I might go about drawing a basic (but general) 2d rectangle. I'm not sure if this is the correct way to think about it, or, if it is, how to implement it. In my head, here's how I imagine doing it: t = make_rectangle(width, height) build general VBO, centered at 0, 0 optionally: t.set_scale(2) optionally: t.set_angle(30) t.draw_at(x, y) calculates some sort of scale/rotate/translate matrix (or matrices), passes the VBO and the matrix to a shader program Something happens to clip the world to the view visible on screen. I'm really unclear on how 4 and 5 will work. The main problem is that all the tutorials I find either: use fixed function pipeline, are for 3d, or are unclear how to do something this "simple". Can someone provide me with either a better way to think of / do this, or some concrete code detailing performing the transformations in a shader and constructing and passing the data required for this shader transformation?

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  • Best way to implement an AI for Dominion? [on hold]

    - by j will
    I'm creating a desktop client and server backend for the game, Dominion, by Donald X. Vaccarino. I've been reading up on AI techniques and algorithms and I just wanted to what is the best way to implement an AI for such a game? Would it better to look at neural networks, genetic algorithms, decision trees, fuzzy logic, or any other methodology? For those who do not know how Dominion works, check out this part of the wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_(card_game)#Gameplay

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  • Question about BoundingSpheres and Ray intersections

    - by NDraskovic
    I'm working on a XNA project (not really a game) and I'm having some trouble with picking algorithm. I have a few types of 3D models that I draw to the screen, and one of them is a switch. So I'm trying to make a picking algorithm that would enable the user to click on the switch and that would trigger some other function. The problem is that the BoundingSphere.Intersect() method always returns null as result. This is the code I'm using: In the declaration section: ` //Basic matrices private Matrix world = Matrix.CreateTranslation(new Vector3(0, 0, 0)); private Matrix view = Matrix.CreateLookAt(new Vector3(10, 10, 10), new Vector3(0, 0, 0), Vector3.UnitY); private Matrix projection = Matrix.CreatePerspectiveFieldOfView(MathHelper.ToRadians(45), 800f / 600f, 0.01f, 100f); //Collision detection variables Viewport mainViewport; List<BoundingSphere> spheres = new List<BoundingSphere>(); Ray ControlRay; Vector3 nearPoint, farPoint, nearPlane, farPlane, direction; ` And then in the Update method: ` nearPlane = new Vector3((float)Mouse.GetState().X, (float)Mouse.GetState().Y, 0.0f); farPlane = new Vector3((float)Mouse.GetState().X, (float)Mouse.GetState().Y, 10.0f); nearPoint = GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Unproject(nearPlane, projection, view, world); farPoint = GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Unproject(farPlane, projection, view, world); direction = farPoint - nearPoint; direction.Normalize(); ControlRay = new Ray(nearPoint, direction); if (spheres.Count != 0) { for (int i = 0; i < spheres.Count; i++) { if (spheres[i].Intersects(ControlRay) != null) { Window.Title = spheres[i].Center.ToString(); } else { Window.Title = "Empty"; } } ` The "spheres" list gets filled when the 3D object data gets loaded (I read it from a .txt file). For every object marked as switch (I use simple numbers to determine which object is to be drawn), a BoundingSphere is created (center is on the coordinates of the 3D object, and the diameter is always the same), and added to the list. The objects are drawn normally (and spheres.Count is not 0), I can see them on the screen, but the Window title always says "Empty" (of course this is just for testing purposes, I will add the real function when I get positive results) meaning that there is no intersection between the ControlRay and any of the bounding spheres. I think that my basic matrices (world, view and projection) are making some problems, but I cant figure out what. Please help.

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  • How can I store all my level data in a single file instead of spread out over many files?

    - by Jon
    I am currently generating my level data, and saving to disk to ensure that any modifications done to the level are saved. I am storing "chunks" of 2048x2048 pixels into a file. Whenever the player moves over a section that doesn't have a file associated with the position, a new file is created. This works great, and is very fast. My issue, is that as you are playing the file count gets larger and larger. I'm wondering what are techniques that can be used to alleviate the file count, without taking a performance hit. I am interested in how you would store/seek/update this data in a single file instead of multiple files efficiently.

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  • Loading and drawing materials using Lib3ds

    - by Dfowj
    Hey all, i'm currently using Lib3ds to load models into my C++/OpenGL project. So far, i've been follow the model loading tutorial found here. The tutorial gives a good example of how to draw the vertices and normals using VBO's, but so far i've been lost as how to do the same thing with materials. Could i get an explanation/example of how to both load and draw materials of my meshes using Lib3ds and OpenGL?

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  • What can make a peaceful game successful?

    - by Miro
    Today, the most successful games are action games like FPS, RPG, MMORPG... I'd like to make peaceful game, but I don't know how to attract people. I can make good graphics, but that's not the main thing that makes people like game more that couple of minutes. The content is important. In game styles mentioned in beginning are main content fight, kill others, make from yourself predator/the most powerful creature/player in the game. But what content can attract people in peaceful game?

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  • Drawing order in XNA

    - by marc wellman
    When manually setting the drawing order of game components by setting int DrawableGameComponent.DrawOrder can one use any integer numbers as long an order is defined like component1 = drawing order: 2 component2 = drawing order: 5 component3 = drawing order: 10 component4 = drawing order: 323 or do these integers have to be consecutive and starting with zero like component1 = drawing order: 0 component2 = drawing order: 1 component3 = drawing order: 2 component4 = drawing order: 3 ?

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  • Can you shade a specific section of a sprite? If so, how?

    - by l5p4ngl312
    I have been working on an isometric minecraft-esque game engine for a strategy game I plan on making. As you can see, it really needs some sort of shading. It is difficult to distinguish between separate elevations when the camera is facing away from the slope because everything is the same shade. So my question is: can I shade just a specific section of a sprite? All of those blocks are just sprites, so if I shaded the entire image, it would shade the whole block. I am using LWJGL. Heres a link to a screenshot from the engine: http://i44.tinypic.com/qxqlix.jpg

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  • Efficiently separating Read/Compute/Write steps for concurrent processing of entities in Entity/Component systems

    - by TravisG
    Setup I have an entity-component architecture where Entities can have a set of attributes (which are pure data with no behavior) and there exist systems that run the entity logic which act on that data. Essentially, in somewhat pseudo-code: Entity { id; map<id_type, Attribute> attributes; } System { update(); vector<Entity> entities; } A system that just moves along all entities at a constant rate might be MovementSystem extends System { update() { for each entity in entities position = entity.attributes["position"]; position += vec3(1,1,1); } } Essentially, I'm trying to parallelise update() as efficiently as possible. This can be done by running entire systems in parallel, or by giving each update() of one system a couple of components so different threads can execute the update of the same system, but for a different subset of entities registered with that system. Problem In reality, these systems sometimes require that entities interact(/read/write data from/to) each other, sometimes within the same system (e.g. an AI system that reads state from other entities surrounding the current processed entity), but sometimes between different systems that depend on each other (i.e. a movement system that requires data from a system that processes user input). Now, when trying to parallelize the update phases of entity/component systems, the phases in which data (components/attributes) from Entities are read and used to compute something, and the phase where the modified data is written back to entities need to be separated in order to avoid data races. Otherwise the only way (not taking into account just "critical section"ing everything) to avoid them is to serialize parts of the update process that depend on other parts. This seems ugly. To me it would seem more elegant to be able to (ideally) have all processing running in parallel, where a system may read data from all entities as it wishes, but doesn't write modifications to that data back until some later point. The fact that this is even possible is based on the assumption that modification write-backs are usually very small in complexity, and don't require much performance, whereas computations are very expensive (relatively). So the overhead added by a delayed-write phase might be evened out by more efficient updating of entities (by having threads work more % of the time instead of waiting). A concrete example of this might be a system that updates physics. The system needs to both read and write a lot of data to and from entities. Optimally, there would be a system in place where all available threads update a subset of all entities registered with the physics system. In the case of the physics system this isn't trivially possible because of race conditions. So without a workaround, we would have to find other systems to run in parallel (which don't modify the same data as the physics system), other wise the remaining threads are waiting and wasting time. However, that has disadvantages Practically, the L3 cache is pretty much always better utilized when updating a large system with multiple threads, as opposed to multiple systems at once, which all act on different sets of data. Finding and assembling other systems to run in parallel can be extremely time consuming to design well enough to optimize performance. Sometimes, it might even not be possible at all because a system just depends on data that is touched by all other systems. Solution? In my thinking, a possible solution would be a system where reading/updating and writing of data is separated, so that in one expensive phase, systems only read data and compute what they need to compute, and then in a separate, performance-wise cheap, write phase, attributes of entities that needed to be modified are finally written back to the entities. The Question How might such a system be implemented to achieve optimal performance, as well as making programmer life easier? What are the implementation details of such a system and what might have to be changed in the existing EC-architecture to accommodate this solution?

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  • Confusion with Libgdx UI

    - by BrotherJack
    I've started with Libgdx and am currently stumbling about trying to understand how to set up the interface. I have generated the base projects in Eclipse ( < proj-name ,< proj-name -android, < proj-name -desktop, < proj-name -html), and can get the program to display a simple background, play a looping sound file, and draw a tank. I have been having some problems implementing the UI though. I want to make a collapsible interface bar at the bottom of the screen that would contain buttons for movement, and selecting weapons. I'm confused since there appears to be several ways of doing this and the documentation (or tutorials explaining it) tend to be obsolete. How would one go about this? Use a stage for the bar and actors for the widgets? I'm a little lost on this.

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  • Rotate 3D Model from a custom position

    - by Nipuna Silva
    I have a 3D Model like above in which i want to rotate it from a given location(pointed in red) but I can only rotate it from the middle. How can I rotate it from a custom point. Edit: I successfully able to rotate the model from the below position by getting the radius of the model and applying it to the world matrix Vector3 point = new Vector3(-radius, 0, 0); world = Matrix.CreateTranslation(-radius, 0, 0); But now I cannot change the position of the object and it always centered in middle of the screen. I think that's because i applied the above code. How can I place it anywhere I want?

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  • OpenGL vs DirectX?

    - by Harold
    I saw the articles that were going on about OpenGL being better than DirectX and that Microsoft are really just trying to get everyone to use DirectX even though it's inferior so that gaming is almost exclusively for Windows and XBox, but since the article was written in 2006 is it still relevant today? Also I know plenty of games are written in DirectX but does anyone have any examples of popular games written in OpenGL? Thanks

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  • Server side random selection of players

    - by Ron
    Assuming I have a simple client-server game, where the server picks random players on a very frequent base, I was wondering what is the best way to select a random player (According to the following constraints): Solution must be high performance and highly scalable Random spread should be relatively even (meaning if I have 3 players and pick 99 times, they will all be picked 33 times more or less) Should only pick players who were active in the past X days (optional, but a big bonus) The actual DB or data model used to store players isn't an issue here, as we'll select the technology in accordance to our needs. However, high performance and scalability is (at the moment we have over 60,000 unique daily active players, and we plan on growing even more). Thanks!

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  • Deterministic Multiplayer RTS game questions?

    - by Martin K
    I am working on a cross-platform multiplayer RTS game where the different clients and a server(flash and C#), all need to stay deterministically synchronised. To deal with Floatpoint inconsistencies, I've come across this method: http://joshblog.net/2007/01/30/flash-floating-point-number-errors/#comment-49912 which basically truncates off the nondeterministic part: return Math.round(1000 * float) / 1000; Howewer my concern is that every time there is a division, there is further chance of creating additional floatpoint errors, in essence making it worse? . So it occured to me, how about something like this: function floatSafe(number:Number) : Number {return Math.round(float* 1024) / 1024; } ie dividing with only powers of 2 ? What do you think? . Ironically with the above method I got less accurate results: trace( floatSafe(3/5) ) // 0.599609375 where as with the other method(dividing with 1000), or just tracing the raw value I am getting 3/5 = 0.6 or Maybe thats what 3/5 actually is, IE 0.6 cannot really be represented with a floatpoint datatype, and would be more consistent across different platforms?

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  • Game state management (Game, Menu, Titlescreen, etc)

    - by munchor
    Basically, in every single game I've made so far, I always have a variable like "current_state", which can be "game", "titlescreen", "gameoverscreen", etc. And then on my Update function I have a huge: if current_state == "game" game stuf ... else if current_state == "titlescreen" ... However, I don't feel like this is a professional/clean way of handling states. Any ideas on how to do this in a better way? Or is this the standard way?

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  • Stop a rotating object at a specified angle?

    - by Krummelz
    I'm working in JavaScript with HTML5 and the canvas. I have an object which is rotating at a certain speed, and I need the object's rotation to slow down gradually and the front of the object to stop at a specified angle. (I'm using radians, not degrees.) I have a variable to keep track of the angle which the object is facing, as it rotates. How would I go about getting the object to come to rest, facing the direction I want it to?

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  • What is the best way to render a 2d game map?

    - by Deukalion
    I know efficiency is key in game programming and I've had some experiences with rendering a "map" earlier but probably not in the best of ways. For a 2D TopDown game: (simply render the textures/tiles of the world, nothing else) Say, you have a map of 1000x1000 (tiles or whatever). If the tile isn't in the view of the camera, it shouldn't be rendered - it's that simple. No need to render a tile that won't be seen. But since you have 1000x1000 objects in your map, or perhaps less you probably don't want to loop through all 1000*1000 tiles just to see if they're suppose to be rendered or not. Question: What is the best way to implement this efficiency? So that it "quickly/quicker" can determine what tiles are suppose to be rendered? Also, I'm not building my game around tiles rendered with a SpriteBatch so there's no rectangles, the shapes can be different sizes and have multiple points, say a curved object of 10 points and a texture inside that shape; Question: How do you determine if this kind of objects is "inside" the View of the camera? It's easy with a 48x48 rectangle, just see if it X+Width or Y+Height is in the view of the camera. Different with multiple points. Simply put, how to manage the code and the data efficiently to not having to run through/loop through a million of objects at the same time.

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  • Why are textures always square powers of two? What if they aren't?

    - by Keavon
    Why are the resolution of textures in games always a power of two (128x128, 256x256, 512x512, 1024x1024, etc.)? Wouldn't it be smart to save on the game's file size and make the texture exactly fit the UV unwrapped model? What would happen if there was a texture that was not a power of two? Would it be incorrect to have a texture be something like 256x512, or 512x1024? Or would this cause the problems that non-power-of-two textures may cause?

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  • Is good practice to optimize FPS even when it's above the lower limit to give illusion of movement?

    - by rraallvv
    I started over 50 FPS on the iPhone, but now I'm bellow 30 PFS, I've seen most iPhone games clamped to either 60 or 30 FPS, even when 24 or less would give the illusion of movement. I've concidered my limit to be a little bit over 15 FPS, in fact my physics simulation is updated at that rate (15.84 steps/s) as that is the lowest that still give fluid movement, a bit lower gives jerky motion. Is there a practical reason why to clamp FPS way above the lower limit? Update: The following image could help to clarify I can independently set the physic simulation step, frame rate, and simulation interval update. My concern is why should I clamp any of those to values greater than the minimum? For instance to conserve battery life I could just to choose the lower limits, but it seems that 60 or 30 FPS are the most used values.

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  • How to do Cross Platform in own Engine? [on hold]

    - by Mineorbit
    At the Moment I finished the first game with my game engine(if I wanna call it like that) which is based in LWJGL. Now i'm worring if I could do crossplattforming in my engine. I build me a tool tool with a batch file to compile my project dir into an .exe . At first i'm looking to do it on Android with an comparable batch file. An link for an tutorial would be awesome! At next place there would be an renderer and audiosystem. If read that theres an OpenGL ES renderer, and I allready played a bit around with the Android SDK. But I use the Texture and Audio class in slick-util. So I thought about creating OOP classes that carry around the data and load it in an platform specific Buffer. A Link for an equaly easy-to-use Texture or Audio class would be awesome! Thats all for now! Answers would be awesome! Thanks, Mineorbit!

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