Liberty Basic for Game Programming?

[8IronBob]

Hello. I have just d/led Liberty BASIC recently, and I was just wondering, from different sources that Liberty BASIC would not be good for game programming. However, there are other sources that say that Liberty can do just as much if not more than QuickBASIC, or any of the DOS BASIC languages that do allow for small game programs. Does anyone here know if any games can be programmed into Liberty BASIC similar to those of QBasic nature? This is getting me curious if I d/led the right version of the language. I'm just curious if this would be better than Visual Basic at all.

I know about Dark BASIC, but that's sort of out of my league at this point, as that may be more challenging in the long haul than QBasic. Plus I believe that Liberty BASIC was pushed enough to be popular. However, is this a good choice? Please advise if I should switch to Dark BASIC, or try QBasic in DOSBox, etc...

[Frenkel]

I'll post this before anyone else does it: FreeBASIC (http://www.freebasic.net/).

[8IronBob]

http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/doh.gif Why am I so blind today? Liberty BASIC was the first thing to pop into my head, then I thought about DarkBasic, since some people on this forum have used DarkBasic, but FreeBasic didn't come to mind until you posted it. Thanks a wazoo of a million! Whew! I would've never thought of them. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/brickwall.gif

[DudeMiester]

I dunno, if I was going to do game programming with BASIC, I'd definitly go DarkBasic and learn all the "hard" stuff. I mean, you'll have to learn it anyways, might as well do it now. Also, you don't have to use the complex stuff right away. However, the main reason is that DarkBasic should have a fairly optimised backend for handling all the graphics/math stuff. The peformance difference should be tremendous.

[8IronBob]

Okay, I'm looking over DarkBasic, too. It was difficult to see where the difference lied between Liberty and Dark Basics at first. Due to the fact that they both work under Windows, and they don't seem to cost too much (remember that Visual Basic would cost hundreds, if not thousands for the high-end versions of VB). So, $40 for an electronic download of DarkBasic for the full version, a drop in the bucket vs. other commercial BASIC languages. Sure, I'll be glad to try them out. I'll look through Liberty, see how that works as well. Then my decision will be made between those. QBasic would be just too slow in DOSBox, and the games won't look half as good anymore. Okay, thank you for that suggestion. I'm looking at all the options here.

[DudeMiester]

DarkBasic has extensive 3D capabilites, and LibertyBasic has none. That's a pretty darn big difference.

[8IronBob]

Okay, I guess that Liberty's more for business-oriented programming, obviously. I guess that Dark Basic'll bring me back to the good old days of mine, and should be worth the try. Hopefully I can revive some of those old programs I made about 10 - 15 years ago with the TI-99/4A. Of course, to convert TI BASIC code to Dark Basic, that's gonna take some heavy lifting as far as converting the code.

[8IronBob]

I'd say you're right about DarkBASIC, it really does seem to have potential over anything else I've ever used. I can see why everyone here decided to go with that form of the language. I do feel sorry for letting that down. Seems like I'm gonna be using DB for a while, just gotta learn how to convert QB and VB code to DB, that'll take some thinking. QB's sort of old school BASIC, let's hope that the transition from MS's BASIC programming will be smooth to DB. Thank you for that suggestion!

[Zero]

DB is nice and all but here is the truth about DB (I own DBPro) it's slow, if you are thinking about making 3Dgames in DBPro think again, there are all sorts of limitations to DB that they seem to like listing anyways.

The BSP support sucks and I mean totally sucks
To get this program running farly decent you need atleast 1.5Ghz for graphics that look like Quake 1 and often there are bugs in the functions syntax, as for BASIC interparaters, I would go with VB 6.0 and the OpenGL and Direct X SDK, in DBpro I am often finding myself using one of the authors DLL's that allows the use of inline ASM because it's soo tareeibly slow, even 2D is slow having 6 or 7 objects on the screen slows DB right down. Atleast QB had Peek, Poke , Varprt and Defseg. DBP and DB have none of these the closest they have are memblocks and they arent all that useful.

[8IronBob]

Well, I went with the cheapie Classic edition. I felt that it's best to start out with the basic DB, and work my way to Pro eventually as an upgrade when the hardware requirements can handle it more smoothly, and I'm quite sure that the upgrade from Classic to Pro would not be as pricey as just directly going Pro. Especially if you stretch out the time between doing both of them. However, between DB and LB (I now own both Liberty and Dark Basics, I'm thinking of throwing VB6 out the window now, I've had that for a boring old six years since it first came out). However, now that I went with these, I'll never go back to M$'s Basic languages ever again. Who needs Bill Gates' complex and boring programming languages anyway, they're far too overpriced on top of that. After all, what Bill Gates charges for VB Pro, you could get DB Pro for a quarter of that cost, at least. I believe I made a smarter move for a newer technology of the BASIC language.

[DudeMiester]

Well I didn't think speed was a concern if he's talking about basic. I mean he could always learn C++ and do real graphics programming if he wanted to. Also, the most recent screens from DB looked pretty darn good for a basic language.

[Kristian Joensen]

Imo Pascal is the best language for learning(or anything else for that matter). I'd recommend Free Pascal + Lazarus to anyone wanting to learn how to program.

[8IronBob]

Kristian Joensen said:
Imo Pascal is the best language for learning(or anything else for that matter). I'd recommend Free Pascal + Lazarus to anyone wanting to learn how to program.



Well, I've always done QB since the mid to late 90s anyway, and I've done VB somewhere in between. I dunno why, I just loved the BASIC language too much. I did try C++ out once, but I got fed up with that after a year or two. BASIC's just on the right level that I'm comfortable with. That language is making a bigtime comeback, and with good reason. It just makes creating computer software that much easier, and it can be as good if not better than a comparable program written in anything else. I know the speed may not be the same, but at least there are chances that programs made in BASIC can have the same features of the big guys that develop in Pascal, Delphi, Java, or C++ on certain points.

[DudeMiester]

lol! imho, the only reason that Basic is making a comeback is that computers have gotten powerful enough now, you can actually do something with it.

[8IronBob]

That's very true. I believe that Visual Basic was way too slow, and too expensive. Bill Gates needs to learn to stop gouging the wazoo out of people, easier said than done, I mean, yeah, it's business sense to make more $$$, but Microsoft's already targeted as a monopoly already, which isn't right. I'm one of those who always goes with the underdogs, as far as programming languages are concerned. Of course, during the mid-to-late 90s, there wasn't much of a choice like there is today. It was either a slow Basic language that took forever to run a smooth program, or a difficult, complex C++ compiler that took you a week to figure out how to write a program that would run the way you wanted it to. To me, for C++, nothing beat Borland's C++ 4.52 during the day, because it had its unique graphics array setups for DOS programs. I can only wish that Inprise was still into that business today for Windows graphics. VB could run faster today, but I'm not gonna take any chances with M$ anymore. To me, it's worth trying out DB and LB for now, those're good programming languages for right now. DB for games, and LB for other software programming, those'll do for now.

[DudeMiester]

Well the thing I think most people miss about C++ is that while many things are difficult to do on their own in it, there in usually a library somewhere that already does exactly that! So long as you care to look, you can usually find what you need. Of course, finding good quality and/or fast librarys can be hard too.

Also, I know you can't do generics in basic, which is a really nice thing. C++ you can do it, sort of. I mean in some ways it's a kludge that's way too complicated, but it does work. Even so, in the next revision of the C++ standard, due 2009 afaik, there should be much more explicit support of generics and a LOT more.

[Night Hacker]

Another form of BASIC that I heard was quite nice is Blitz3D. I haven't tried it myself, but I have seen some screenshots from some people that are actually creating a commercial game with it.

[8IronBob]

Night Hacker said:
Another form of BASIC that I heard was quite nice is Blitz3D. I haven't tried it myself, but I have seen some screenshots from some people that are actually creating a commercial game with it.



Oh yeah, I heard a lot about Blitz Basic, I believe I even have a demo that came out of a book. It was a tough 50/50 decision to go amongst Liberty BASIC, Blitz BASIC, or Dark BASIC, which the DarkBASIC was the one I went for.

As far as the differences in code structures go, and commands, that's another story, because all three of those BASIC forms have different command sets, and different structures, which can be annoying, and difficult to take. However, I am currently doing the workaround to see what commands would be similar as far as what those functions do. For example, in QBasic, there's one set of commands that are unique to QB, then on the same token, DB has different sets of commands, as well as LB. Trying to find similar commands may be misleading, and the structure of programming would be difficult to interpret at first. There's a lot to consider when jumping from one form (old form) of BASIC to a brand new, more powerful form. That I have to watch out for. Thank you for your advice.

[Samji]

Liberty BASIC is quite a powerful language.

I haven't used it myself to make games, but I'm using it to make my Rapid RemedyTools.

I think you should try it for games though.


Here are some examples of games written in Liberty BASIC. (http://www.lbdownloads.com/files/viewforum.php?f=2) http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

[8IronBob]

I believe I have it set that I am using Dark Basic for 3D/ heavy games, but I'm using Liberty Basic for more utility-type programming, or light games. I actually invested in trying both, may be dumb, but they both have their purposes. Having to learn two different forms of BASIC for the time it takes to learn one form of BASIC, that's gonna take some doing. I believe I have a handle on both of these.

[Night Hacker]

Here's the website with screenshots of that commercial game being made using Blitz3D.

Scroll down a little and on the right side of the screen, their game HAUNTED...
http://www.gamedigits.com



It's a UK website, I frequent their forums, good people.

[8IronBob]

I shall pay them a visit. I'd like to compare them to Dark Basic, get a chance to see who's the better one once and for all...

[Night Hacker]

Yeah, that's your best bet.

Check out games that have been created using bother packages.

Download demos if available and see how difficult it is to create something simple, maybe a 3D rotating cube with textures, do that on both... see which one you are more comfortable with. Also take into account the support you can get for each package. What online support do they offer? Forums? Are questions answered in forums in a timely mannor? DO they have tutorials available? Add ons? Plugins etc? Can you redistribute your creations? Can you SELL your creations without paying anything more? Check licenses on both etc... lots to think about.