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Platform Independent Gaming?

Posted by michael on from the pipe-dream dept.

klocwerk writes "At the game developers conference, Sun is releasing a white paper on their new "Java Games Profile." Their ultimate goal? To have one CD you could pop into an Xbox, a PS2, a Windows machine, or a Linux machine, and play the same game on them all. If they get full support for it I can finally get rid of that windows gaming partition!" Sun's got an article on their site describing what they hope to accomplish.

5 of 452 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Why bother? by damiam · · Score: 4, Informative
    And, it has the added bonus of being written in a fast language like C++ and natively compiled.

    When running a game, the main overhead isn't the speed at which the instructions are executed by the CPU, it's drawing the graphics. As long as Java can use hardware acceleration with the video card, the speed of the language hardly even matters. Anyway, JIT Java can get pretty fast if well compiled.

    --
    It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
  2. Re:Get Real! by LadyLucky · · Score: 3, Informative
    Swing is a bad example. It runs slow even when compiled to native code (in fact, a bit slower). The problem isnt the java, the problem is the inherent design of swing in which you are very deep in inheritance trees, much abstraction going on.

    An example of why java guis dont need to be slow is eclipse. You can't tell its written in java (except maybe the slow load time :-)), but this uses a a different windowing toolkit.

    In summary, the VM adds overhead, yes. But the VM is not the cause of a lousy GUI toolkit.

    --
    dominionrd.blogspot.com - Restaurants on
  3. Check This Out by Enonu · · Score: 5, Informative
    This API absolutely rules: GL4Java

    It works on Linux, Sun, and Win32, and it hauls ass to boot! Quake3 in Java? It's definitely possible!.

  4. Check this out by AKAImBatman · · Score: 3, Informative

    Duke Nukes Stuff. Before the code was VSync locked (and timing locked) it ran 400 FPS! Say what you will, but Sun has come through this time. See Java Gaming for more info.

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    Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
  5. Re:This can only work for some games by bay43270 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Take a look at JavaGaming.org. They have some screen shots there that might change your mind. Keep in mind, this stuff is pretty new. It's only getting better.

    As a professional Java developer, I've learned not to give up on Sun. Java's potential has jumped leaps and bounds in the last few years.