IrrLicht v's TV3D

[kwok]

Before I started using TV3D i was looking at Irrlicht. Heres what I found:

advantages of TV3D:

Easy to use
Loads of functionality (that hopefully will include net soon)
Great forum, (nice, indepth, to the point answers quickly)
Landscapes easier to use

advantages of Irrlicht:
zlib licensed (free for commercial use, updates to engine source does not need to be released)
supports 4 display modes, openGL/Dx8&9/Software

This leads me to my final comment...

Considering Irrlicht is zlib licensed project, why don't the developers of TV3D take a look at the source for it and maybe use it to help develop support for more than just directx. What I would really like to see is a software rendering mode so that my game will run on non-3d accelerated machines, I think this is very important as not everyone has a 3d graphics card, out of the 7 pcs i have at home only 2 are truely 3d accelerated. An I'm positive that many others would love to see OpenGL support.

I thought about posting this as a feature I would like to see but, since I mention other engines prolly safer to post here.

[potato]

I see an advantage for OpenGL rendering, but software? You'll be hard-pressed to find ANY computer nowadays that can't at least run DX8. Even the cheapest, crappiest integrated video solutions support this.

[kwok]

I have 5 pcs that dont have acellerated 3d adapter, 2 p3's and a dual p2, 2 celerons(1ghz,333mhz)
the 1ghz celeron only has pci slots (cheap all-in-one board) and i dont have any pci cards
the p3 700 is a laptop...
the others are just old.

Some of the machines do have partial 3d support but alot of features arent there and are very slow. having software, especially a low detail one that runs at a reasonable speed would enable the game you make to work on older machines(i really want my game to work on all the comps i have at home) i would like the sys requirements for .net to be limiting factor. I know most of the people here have fast/new machines (i have a p4 too.. and i'm a poor student) but some people do have slow/old machines and i would like to be able to allow them to play, even though graphics are ugly/game runs slow...

And it is just an additional feature, wouldn't upset those who dont want it!

[JeffWeber]

I have to disagree here.  Development time is a limited resource for Sylvain and company.  I wouldn't want them to have to divide there time anymore in order to get OpenGL support (nothing wrong with being a pure DX engine). And I don't want them to spend extra time adding stuff to get the engine to run on a minority of computers.

I think if  you look at most break-downs of what people own, the large majority have machines that are at least somewhat 3D accelerated.

[Dragoon]

hrrrm, maybe for the TV3D 7.x series?

[darqSHADOW]

One word, three letters...   XNA

DS

[Ross]

XNA    :shock:  :shock:       (if not too expensive )

[GoodVillain]

I dont think OpenGL will ever be supported by Truevision3d. Sylvain seems to hate it with a passion compared to DirectX. (I agree) And he might of said this jokingly, but in IRC he mentioned if they were to ever do OpenGL support it would be 10 years before 6.5 would ever be released. So in short, OpenGL support is never going to happen.

However Darq mentioned XNA. This comment was indirect, but put 2 and 2 together and you will see a new platform that TV3D may eventually be compatible with.

[Pyaray]

I think people who at this stage still don't have 3D hardware, shouldn't be trying to play 3D games.  5 years ago, Software rendering was a requirement.  But at this stage, a decent 3D card is $40, less than the price of most games.

Although software rendering should be (in theory) easy to implement, just enable the bits to allow DirectX to do software rendering.  I don't know if that feature is still in DirectX 9 though, I know it was in DX 5 and before.

As for OpenGL, I would love for Truevision to be OpenGL compatible.  Not because I care about OpenGL, but because if it were OpenGL compatible that would mean that it's 1 step closer to being cross platform.  And if it were cross platform, it would be a dream come true.

Pyaray

[potato]

Nonetheless, I think implementing software rendering would be a total waste of time. The number of people out there who do NOT have access to a DX8-compatible video card is INCREDIBLY small. Even your average office cubicle-machine can handle DX9 fairly well. To spend time doing a software renderer is a huge waste of time.

OpenGL is the same to a lesser extent. There simply is no games market on Linux yet, and Macs... well that's another story. I personally believe there's a market for games on the Mac, but nonetheless, the PC market still is larger by orders of magnitude.

[Pyaray]

I was thinking more cross platform than that.  The less tied to DirectX Truevision is, the less platform dependent it is.  I was thinking of a larger market than Mac & Linux, I was thinking console, like PS2, PS3, XBox, XBox 360, PSP, etc..

Pyaray

[potato]

PlayStations run on their own API, and as darq said, there are plans already to make TV compatible with Xbox/Xbox360. So really, putting OpenGL in wouldn't help either, since none of those platforms support it.

[kwok]

XNA?

Wow, can't wait until that is implemented... Gives me a reason to buy a new console soon

The only other support that would make TV cream of the crop is support for mobile devices, only know of 3 that is 3d capable tho, gizmondo, nintendoDS and PSP. I think the gizmondo maybe a platform that is highly feasable to get TV to work in, I think it uses WinCe also getting some basic support for other win pdas would just make this engine totally unbeleivable!

Thats why I say that having a soft mode maybe good, becase it will allow the engine to be easier to get to work with these low powered platforms.

Anyways, XNA support would make this engine amazing alone, so If thats what you guys are working on then thats great!

I'm just dreaming of the day I can use TV to make games for pc/mobiles/consoles!

[Dragoon]

and how about speed?

irrlight claims to be very fast, is it realy that fast or is it just a sale trick(...eventhough it's a free engine :roll: ) ?

[kwok]

Yes they claim it is much faster than most engines, I only tried it for a short while and it seemed quite quick but it is alot harder in my opinion to work with, I could barely understand how to load an object after like a week of playing, in a week or two of playing with tv3d I've made a skeleton of the game I'm making(camera setup,models dynamically loaded(almost realtime..), landscape dynamically loaded, simple movement(a few silly errors in my code..),a gui almost ready, textured fonts(must have for me game..) rain and water implemented, animations loaded) and a realtime landscape editor(does heightmap and texturing).

The landscape editor was made in 2 hours just started it earlier today all this is thanks to the helpful tutorials and the easy use of tv6.2 in vb.net (i presume 6.5 will have better support for vb.net, can't afford to join the lucky beta testers list...)

In irrlicht there is also problems with using it in vb.net not 100% sure what it is but it put me off, I think it said something like partial vb.net support. So the speed you gain is from using it in c++, but if you were to use c++ for truevision you would probably see the same speed improvements. Also I would have thought tv6.5 would have some speed improvements... I need to try 6.5...