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Sun Pushes Java For Games Market

Posted by simoniker on from the doom-3-conversion-coming-soon dept.

mysterious_mark writes "Sun has a new initiative promoting Java for game development, according to a story at CNET News." Interestingly, the company is trying to convince game makers that you can make state-of-the-art titles in Java as easily as simpler browser or phone games: "Java also has been used to build a number of simple online PC games, such as card games, but the language can be used to create sophisticated graphics for A-list games, Melissinos said. 'Some people may have the misconception that Java can't do great, high-performance graphics, and that's absolutely not true.'"

5 of 76 comments (clear)

  1. Re:TO the metal by Golthar · · Score: 2, Informative

    Yes, in fact there are some libraries available that will do the bare metal stuff for you.
    Also, a lot of the runtime code swapping capabilities will make it easier/nicer to create mods by the community.

    Try looking at the Java gaming online forum

  2. Re:TO the metal by dimator · · Score: 2, Informative

    Check out this article about "Dirty Java." (Sorry, it requires a registration at gamasutra.) It's a little dated, but I think it still applies.

    --
    python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
  3. More Information by halfnerd · · Score: 2, Informative

    Check out this

    I read it just yesteday and must day that I'm impressed with all the information in this report. Certainly a good resource on this subject.

  4. Re:It's a hardware problem by p2sam · · Score: 4, Informative

    Nitpicking...

    As you mentioned Java3d, you must know that Java3d can either use software or Direct3D or OpenGL, therefore your assertion that Java can't manipulate hardware is only true in the sense that ANSI C can't manipulate hardware.

    Also see gl4java at http://www.jausoft.com/gl4java.html

  5. The biggest problem I have with this... by mstorer3772 · · Score: 2, Informative

    ...is garbage collection.

    Unless they develop some new GC system that lets you give specific time slices for processing, you'll end up with the occasional random crater in your framerate.

    I notice a second or two's pause while using IntelliJ's IDEA (a java IDE built in java), when the GC system wakes up and pokes around to free up memory. This is on a DUAL 2.6ghz machine, fer crying out loud. Nothing against the IDE, I love it... lots of cool little features to make life easier.

    So even if you have the best 3d API in the world, sooner or later the GC is going to wake up and brutally maim your framerate. Nothing you can do. Most JVM's ignore explicit GC calls too (in my experience).

    So until someone comes up with a GC system that can play nicely with others ("here's 50ms, go to town"), 3d games in java strike me as a lost cause.

    I don' know... maybe someone could precache everything, and not release anything except between maps, so the GC never wakes up during actual game play. It still strikes me as a royal PITA, and an unnecessary memory hog.

    --
    Fooz Meister