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Quake2 Ported to Java, Play Via the Web
casemon writes "Quake2 fans unite! Thanks to German software developer ByTonic software, you can now play Quake2 via the web with Jake2 a java port of ID Softwares seminal Quake2. ByTonic claims performance is similar to original C version. From the Jake2 website;
"Jake2 is a Java 3D game engine. It is a port of the GPL'd Quake2 game engine from idSoftware. To use the Jake2 engine you need either the data files from the original game or from the demo version available for download from ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com."
You actually don't need to get the data files, they've set it up to automatically download the 38Mb demo assets using WebStart. Just click the Play Now button and away you go. Most features supported, even multiplayer server!"
... I would give this guy research lab and resources to create java-based DirectX library. For game developers, it would be just great to write once and sell on Windows on Linux on Mac on Playstation (don't know about XBox). Even without Sun's support, it would be great fot 3rd party to sell such engine/framework.
839*929
Quake 2 was the first game designed for and supporting 3d acceleration out of the box. In this way it is certainly seminal. So much so, in fact, that 3d acceleration is no longer a part of the collective consumer consciousness :)
This is a bullshit argument that generally presumes a substandard optimization by the binary compiler.
No it assumes that the compiler cannot know the most common runtime code paths (which is true). A JIT engine can of course.
Even with compilers that read seperately collected profiler data (such as recent gcc which can take gprof output) can only work on that one profiler measurement. Lots of software is highly dependent on usage patterns and so different paths will be run depending on how the user uses the software. Only runtime optimisation can take this into account.
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
Even with 512MB of RAM, Azureus (the hugely popular Java-based BitTorrent client) takes forever to start up, responds sluggishly to user input, and sucks down so much RAM that the Windows PC it's running on is nearly useless for any other task. This isn't simply the nature of BitTorrent - other clients run far more smoothly.
Maybe there are reasons for this that aren't directly related to Java. Maybe Azureus just isn't very well-written, or maybe it's just feature-bloated. Maybe the Windows JVM just stinks.
But in any case, the common perception of Java applications as being slow and ponderous is one that Java applications have earned - there are actual reasons, based on real-world experiences, that cause people to feel this way. That has nothing to do with some pig-headed resistance to change.
Rather than railing against the Java-haters, why not point out some useful, slick, fast Java-based applications? I'd love to see some. Every one that I've tried so far has been a disaster in one way or another. I honestly want to like Java. I like the language, I love the concept - it's the real-world experience with it that I have a problem with.