DarkBASIC Pro vs. Blitz 3D, which would do better?
 

If you were to choose between doing a 3D platform in Blitz 3D, or doing a 3D platform in DarkBasic Pro, which would turn out better? How different is the code structure from one to the other? I'm sort of wondering, since I have both, but have a hard time deciding which one's the better one at the end of the day.

Re: DarkBASIC Pro vs. Blitz 3D, which would do better?
 

Take whichever you are more comfortable with.

Re: DarkBASIC Pro vs. Blitz 3D, which would do better?
 

Okay, sweet. So far, I haven't had trouble finding compatibility issues with DB Pro on Vista, which is cool. Also, Blitz 3D apparently works on Vista, but I have to find the CD-ROM I burned it on when I d/led it to make sure.

Re: DarkBASIC Pro vs. Blitz 3D, which would do better?
 

My professor used Dark Basic for several years to teach his class and later switched to Blitz 3D because he found it less buggy. I personally have not worked with Dark Basic. I did find numerious errors in Blitz 3D however.

Re: DarkBASIC Pro vs. Blitz 3D, which would do better?
 

Right, okay. Even tho I do own, and have installed both Blitz 3D and DB Pro, I just find that Blitz has more forgiving code, and seems to take most advantage of all sorts of file formats. I just did a nice terrain mesh, and seems to work out rather well, here's a result of the code and the screenshot of what I did in Blitz, just need to learn how to add the skybox to this:


http://img71.imageshack.us/my.php?image=resultsb0.jpg


I'm wondering what the DB Pro version of a program like this would be like?

Re: DarkBASIC Pro vs. Blitz 3D, which would do better?
 

I dont know about Blitz, but DBP can use extensions, (you can rewrite some functions using C/C++ or ASM :D and make a object lib out of them that can be used in DBP)

Re: DarkBASIC Pro vs. Blitz 3D, which would do better?
 

I would say learn C# and DirectX.

Re: DarkBASIC Pro vs. Blitz 3D, which would do better?
 

Care to elaborate how is this answer going to help the thread starter?

I would say C++ && SDL / OpenGL - did that help? No.

Re: DarkBASIC Pro vs. Blitz 3D, which would do better?
 

ya i apologize my post was no help. :(

Re: DarkBASIC Pro vs. Blitz 3D, which would do better?
 

Bump. Sorry, but yeah, I believe that Bloodshed Dev-C++ is a great language to go hand in hand with Blitz or Dark, can't complain, at least there's variety there.

Re: DarkBASIC Pro vs. Blitz 3D, which would do better?
 

Eh? Bloodshed Dev-C++ is an IDE, not a language. :p

Re: DarkBASIC Pro vs. Blitz 3D, which would do better?
 

C++ is only good if you are working alone on a project, but if its a project with many other people working on it, theres too much room for mistakes.

Re: DarkBASIC Pro vs. Blitz 3D, which would do better?
 

That is why there are coding standards, and commenting. So everyone can read your code. I see no problems if certain guidelines are laid and everyone does what they are told to do. C++ with Boost C++ Libraries is quite handy.

Re: DarkBASIC Pro vs. Blitz 3D, which would do better?
 

About DarkBasic vs BlitzBasic: i will take darkbasic.

3 or 4 years ago i had blitz 3d, but now darkbasic is superior. and i only develop now on darkbasic (well, games. For apps i work with visual c++).

But, if you know c++, i recomend you torque engine, in garage games website.

Re: DarkBASIC Pro vs. Blitz 3D, which would do better?
 

I'd say use FreeBasic, which is basically a wannabe-C clone with simple syntax and OOP :)

Re: DarkBASIC Pro vs. Blitz 3D, which would do better?
 

I would suggest :

a)Irrlicht Engine - if a .NET language is prefered...
Much better IMO from both DarkBasic and Blitz and ..it is free and open source!
http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/

b) if c++ is prefered OGRE is another alternative
http://www.ogre3d.org


Also i would suggest taking a lot at

http://www.devmaster.net/engines/ - all of 3d engines reviewed

Re: DarkBASIC Pro vs. Blitz 3D, which would do better?
 

Well since none of these have to do with DarkBasic or Blitz3D I say assembler if you have the time, you can virually do anything you want with no limits at all.

Between Darkbasic and Blitz, I say Darkbasic Pro

Re: DarkBASIC Pro vs. Blitz 3D, which would do better?
 

And if you can spend some more money: Go for torque engine advanced. It isnt really much more expensive than darkbasic pro with expansions and tools.

But torque has: auto shaders: you dont have to develop them. The most powerful mision/terrain editor i know. All you need to make even more faster than with Darkbasic. The more "pro"-like. Also, if you can buy the book "3d game programming all in one" you will get the basic code that every game uses.

Belive me, if you can spend some more money try it. I bought 1 year ago DarkBasic Pro because i tried it and blitz 3d and Dark Basic Pro was better, but Torque beats it!!.

Re: DarkBASIC Pro vs. Blitz 3D, which would do better?
 

it depends on what it's used for, i can use assembler with Darkbasic Pro (basically rewrite all the necessary functions that would improve speed and blow torque out of the water, but that takes time, unless there is away to slip assembly code into torque without a remake, DB pro still has the potential to win.

You are also forgetting Torque is an engine, DarkBASIC is not, it is a BASIC programming language variant able to use custom dlls compiled in a certain format.

Re: DarkBASIC Pro vs. Blitz 3D, which would do better?
 

I wouldn't really consider assembler that superior to anything, it is nifty used right - i.e in right places, for right things. Things that need utmost speed that is available, C++ isn't that behind even if being higher level language.

Re: DarkBASIC Pro vs. Blitz 3D, which would do better?
 

Why, sure, and IIRC, wasn't BlitzMax one of the faster language variants of Blitz? I mean, that has faster performance over the traditional Plus and 3D counterparts, from what I see. However, DarkBasic may prove worthy of performance benchmarks. However, nothing would beat C++, as you said, but then again, there's always that "hand-in-hand" routine between languages, and that may work out at the end.

Re: DarkBASIC Pro vs. Blitz 3D, which would do better?
 

I would, being able to translate your intentions 100% accurately without error or guessing is like bio-engineering a human at the atomic level, why modify cells when you can make perfect (for your intentions) atoms that form cells?

The only thing I see HLL's useful for, is if you have small development time cycle, if you have 5 or 10 years and were looking to do something impressive I would want to squeeze the most I can out of hardware as I can, and the only way I see someone doing that is either using ASM or coding directly in binary. You will probably tell me that the speed advantage wouldn't be worth the time, but that is where you would be mistaken, most programmers will tell you that coding a program in pure assembler shouldn't be done because it wouldn't provide you with a noticeable speed boost, but these are the very some programmers that refuse to try it, how do you know something if you refuse to try it?

People that have done this realize that all those small gains accumulate into one huge speed gain.

ASM by no means is the end all be all of programming languages, it has some serious flaws, but it should never be underestimated, if there is a way to speed up a C/C++ why can't you use that same algorithm in assembler? thats one of the biggest gains ASM has, if you can find away to implement something in another language then you can surly do it in assembler as well.


The reason why I choose ASM is because I have no restrictions, I don't have to follow the OS's rules (sure I might be exploiting a bug in the OS to gain usable memory because Windows and and friends like to VM everything), but once thats done I can just do what I want, and in reality thats all that matters isn't it? I have chosen a tool that allows me to do the job I wish to do.

Re: DarkBASIC Pro vs. Blitz 3D, which would do better?
 

True, and another thing about C/C++ is that it will actually allow for Inline ASM as well, from what I understand. I believe you have to use the asm() command, then use that. Of course, whether or not that'll make that part of the program any faster, that's unclear. I mean, the fastest part of the program is only as fast as the rest of it when it comes to dual-language formats like that.

Re: DarkBASIC Pro vs. Blitz 3D, which would do better?
 

Let's take games as an example, most of them are made in C++ / parts in assembler(where speed is utmost critical) / scripting language( as LUA). There is no real gain in doing the game in pure assembler, in big teams the gains aren't worth the pain. If you code alone for ten years, no one cares - except you.

If it would be so, why don't the gamedevs make games in pure assembler? If it is so beyond everything. Reason, it isn't as fluent as the C++, and in the end efficient compiler can achieve very very close results compared with Assembler.

ASM is niche and will stay so for rest of it's lifetime. With that, you aren't OS restricted, but restricted to certain instruction set(as x86).

Re: DarkBASIC Pro vs. Blitz 3D, which would do better?
 

I am? how so? sure I can't port my programs over directly but neither can any programmer using C/C++ the performance (without rewriting parts) wouldn't be acceptable. I can use assembly on a different achitachure, sure the instructions would be different but you c an still do it.

And assmebly is still used today, if you look at the PS2/PS3 most groups who code demos or homebrew use assembler.

Yes I will agree for a group projects ASM can be tricky to read because everyone has there own coding style its another flaw in ASM, even with an effent compiler you won't reach the speed you could with hand coded assembler, the compiler doesn't really know what you are doing, it sees code with syntax thats all, it doesn't know exactly what the program does therefore it's impossible to achieve speeds faster then assembler with C/C++, sure its only possible if the coder is a novice and doesn't know not to use add or mul instead use sal/sar, shl/shr bitshifts are 100000% faster and take up small amount of cycles.

I think the major problem is the time it takes to debug and fix the code, the devlopment time is rather huge, if thats not an issue then why not?

And Wolf3D was mostly assembler so that means iD worked with assembler on projects with games that had most of not a good portion of code written in assembler.

Re: DarkBASIC Pro vs. Blitz 3D, which would do better?
 

Wait, what? Is 100000% a real figure? Did you ever write a program that does actual stuff in assembly? Optimizing small critical parts of a piece of software using assembly is one (doable) thing, writing whole applications/games in assembly is fantasy.

Re: DarkBASIC Pro vs. Blitz 3D, which would do better?
 

AND to conclude C++ doesn't really restrict one to any OS, as long as there is a compiler for it.

Re: DarkBASIC Pro vs. Blitz 3D, which would do better?
 

it's not a number..lol i was aggerating a tad, its more like 4 times faster then using add or mul

I have written an OS base completely in assembler it was DOSish with only 4 commands, writing a piece of software in AMS is not fantasy look at the older consoles SNES GENESIS, TurboGraphics 16, NEC-PCFX none of these had interpreters all software ways strictly assembly.

For the longest time ZSNES was 100% assembly too so I don't know where your getting that idea that a program coded in pure ASM is fiction there are about a zillion old school games for older consoles that beg to differ.

Re: DarkBASIC Pro vs. Blitz 3D, which would do better?
 

You're talking about software and games from ten years ago. To code a "3D platform" (to quote the thread opener) nowadays you just don't do it fully in ASM. Of course it's useful, powerful, fast, anything you want, but it's the last piece of advice you want to give to someone who obviously doesn't know what he's doing. People abstract the non-critical parts of their applications using relatively high level languages for a reason.

Re: DarkBASIC Pro vs. Blitz 3D, which would do better?
 

I never gave any advice on that subject, I simply stated with Assembler DarkBASIC Pro is better, because you can rewrite the basic funtions in a form of a DLL for use with DarkBASIC Pro, I stated in no way rewrite the whole program, I only went off topic as soon as C/C++ came into this picture.

Blitz3D and DB pro where the choices, not C/C++ nor ASM, but ASM or C/C++ can be used to make the functions in DB Pro faster by replacing them with newer ones.

I wouldn't say it's the last piece of advice, after learning assembler you have some what of an idea how the compiler thinks, this can help you make better choices for the compiler or interpreter so it choses optimizations that are better suited for your game/application