Bliz products performance on Windows 8
Blitz3D Forums/Blitz3D Beginners Area/Bliz products performance on Windows 8
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| Hello, All the Blitz products - Blitz3D, BlitzMAX and BlizPlus are advertised as to run on Windows 95/98/ME/2000/XP/Vista/7/8. But I have seen some threads in the forum about users complaining that games and applications created with Bliz products are showing a very lousy performance on the new Windows 8 under full screen mode, making the released games and applications unusable under Windows 8 I am thinking of going for Blitz3D + Fast Extension. But before that I need to make sure if my games and applications will work smoothly on Windows 8 and future systems. Can anybody please confirm on the Windows 8 issues and what confirmed remedies are available to solve the issues ? Secondly are the Blitz products - Blitz3D and BlitzMAX dead products ? - No more development - bug fixes, updates, support ? |
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| I would say Blitz3D and BlitzMax are considered 'complete' rather than dead. Support is pretty much forum support for Blitz products, but you can't complain at this price point. They are both under bug fix support. I wouldn't recommend Blitz3D for a newcomer as it's tied to an older version of Direct X and this won't change. BlitzMax or Monkey with a suitable 3D library are your best bets. |
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| John Galt: Thank you for the reply and your advice. But could you please confirm on the Windows 8 performance issues ? |
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| I have done some tests on 4 different machines (with Windows XP SP2, with Windows Vista, with Windows 7) recently and the program worked and was rendered correctly (3D and 2D). I don't know about Windows 8. |
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| RemiD: Thank you for your input about performance on other Windows OS. I guess I will have to wait for other users who are using Windows 8 to confirm on the performance of Blitz3D and BlitzMAX. |
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| I couldn't tell you anything directly useful as I don't have Windows 8 either, but - Most of the problems being reported seem to be connected to the fact that Blitz3D is built on DirectX 7, not to anything that would be a bug in the Blitz3D program itself. Therefore, you might be able to get useful information by finding some other DirectX 7 products and seeing how they're being supported or experienced by users on Windows 8. Perhaps visit forums for some very old games or something (I think Deus Ex 1 was DX7 - see how people are getting on with that?). If you have Windows 8 yourself - you didn't say - you can also check out the demo and see how it runs. The demo isn't actually very up to date on features, but it'll be the same DirectX system powering it, so any system-level problems should hopefully affect it in the same way. |
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| Don't have win8 or B3D any more, so can't comment on the performance. |
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| It would be best to read those threads you mentioned to get an answer to your questions about Windows 8. The Windows 8 issues are NOT Blitz-specific and I have confirmed them with DirectDraw7 and Direct3D7 examples I wrote which were not done in a Blitz product which I posted for others to try. BlitzMax runs fine on Windows 8 using the OpenGL and DirectX 9 drivers. BlitzPlus runs fine on Windows 8 using the native driver or the OpenGL driver (but only if using a GUI window). |
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| I can co firm blitz3d has issue cause of using directx 7 fails on windows 8. Thoe please read those thread... |
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| Thank you - all of you for taking time to reply to my post. Yes, Blitz3D on Windows have performance issues since DirectX 7 is not supported anymore on Windows 8. But it is not clear whether different work around like installing DirectX 9 which has support for running DirectX 7 games will solve the situation. The main obstacle is that I do not have access to a Windows 8 pc and so I cannot test anything myself. Guess if I go along the BlitzMAX route, what 3D Engine module is best available and also can you refer other components like a good 3D particle system module, well featured PHYSICS engine module and 3D sound system module that can work along flawlessly with the 3D engine module making BlitzMAX a complete game engine. What about Monkey ? Is it a stalled project ? Is the minib3d-monkey well featured compared to the BlitZ3D features so hat it can be considered for developing graphics intensive 3D commercial games ? Is there any port of Fast Libraries that can work with blitzmax or monkey ? |
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| But it is not clear whether different work around like installing DirectX 9 which has support for running DirectX 7 games will solve the situation. According to the posts in the other threads, it does not help. It is also not a B3D-specific problem. |
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| Just to clarify: Using DX9 drivers on Blitzmax, or OpenGL, there is no problem at all with it on Windows 8. The problem arises widh DX7, and *any* program using it will be locked to ~30 fps when fullscreen. |
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| I am running windows 8 64bit and had no trouble running any of the examples that come with Blitz3d. |
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| Kirkkaf13: Can you please post a full screen example with the FPS count ? It will give me a more strong idea about the performance. Others are saying that FPS is getting locked to 30 FPS under full screen mode. If you know how to avoid the 30 FPS constraint please share. |
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| Hi Juggernaut, Although it is true, it does appear to limit the FPS to 30. jfk EO-11110 has created a fix in the code archives. http://www.blitzbasic.com/codearcs/codearcs.php?code=3064 Here are some screenshots showing a demo playing on my low powered netbook.   Also here is the code used for FPS: curTime = MilliSecs() If curTime > checkTime Then checkTime = curTime + 1000 curFPS = fpscounter fpscounter = 0 Else fpscounter = fpscounter + 1 End If Text 100, 100,"FPS:" + curFPS Hope this helps. |
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| Kirkkaf13: Thank you for taking the time to provide the whole thing in front of us - the screenshots and program code. So the workaround shown at - http://www.blitzbasic.com/codearcs/codearcs.php?code=3064 gives new games and applications made with Blitz3D to run on Windows 8 64 bit while the older games will require a new release with some code changes to run on Windows 8 What about Fast Extensions libraries that are available for Blitz3D ? DO they run flawlessly on Windows 8 ? Would you please download demo version of Fast Extensions available at http://www.fastlibs.com/libraries.php and run the examples and show us some screenshots of the running examples with FPS counter showing the current FPS rate while running under full screen mode ? |
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| Hi Juggernaut, That is correct, it appears all games running in fullscreen will need to use that fix provided by jfk EO-11110. I will try fastlibs and get back to you. Kirk. |
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| You guys should notice that fix will work on windows 8, but it will make things *worse* on windows 7 and earlier - so it's not a proper fix. On top of that, you'll have to check the OS version! The only one who can really fix this is Microsoft, but don't get your hopes up... |
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| You guys should notice that fix will work on windows 8, but it will make things *worse* on windows 7 and earlier - so it's not a proper fix. On top of that, you'll have to check the OS version! One can put out a separate release of the same game for Windows 8 that uses the fix code of VWait and Flip. The other version that will run on Windows 95 to Windows 7 can use the native VWait and Flip command available in Blitz3D. Kirkkaf13: Any report on games using Fast Extension Libraries working flawlessly on Windows 8 ? Have you tried them out ? If you did please share the screenshots with us showing the FPS counter under full screen. |
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| One can put out a separate release of the same game for Windows 8 that uses the fix code of VWait and Flip. The other version that will run on Windows 95 to Windows 7 can use the native VWait and Flip command available in Blitz3D. That is unneeded. Just do one version, detect the OS at the start of the B3D program and conditionally call whichever routines work best for the OS it is running on. |
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| Hi Juggernaut, The fix also needs to be used with fast extensions, again in fullscreen the FPS is limited to 30. Here is a screenshot running in fullscreen with the fix (same machine)  As GaryV said you can just determine which OS they are running to decide on whether this fix is used. |
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| Kirkkaf13: Thank you once again for providing the screenshot. It looks like Blitz3D still have a chance to make new game releases for newer Windows platform with a bit of extra coding. |
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| What about render tweening? Using that, I always have my ifps in the hundreds, and the fps set to 30 anyway. Movies are 30, so what difference does it make? As long as it's not 10 or something. I'm only concerned about the internal frames per second being affected by Windows 8. I'll do a test on that and get back to you all, but for now I'm just saying... if it's only the speed of the screen and not the program underneath, why worry? |
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| " render tweening? " fox95871: Can you please explain what you mean by that term ? |
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| No, but I'll be awesome enough to not tell you to go search the forums, I already did it for you! http://www.blitzbasic.com/codearcs/codearcs.php?code=1497 When I say my opinion, I tend to get oak stakes raised in my direction. But unlike Draculas opinion of how to deal with the poor, my opinion's right. It doesn't matter that Windows 8 limits you to 30fps. Master the code above, and you'll be thinking in terms of what does matter, the speed of the program itself. |
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| Everyone should be using render tweening (especially blitz 3d) otherwise if you game slows down for any reason it makes EVERYTHING slow down. This can lead many issues that could have been corrected simply by locking the frame to a higher number than the actual game logic itself. I like 60fps and 30 ticks for the logic personally. I can prove that this works well because I enjoy testing Blitz3d out on some really old machines and I've never had it drop below 45fps. If it did go below 30 would that start affecting the logic? I'm not sure but I believe it won't because both are running independently from each other. Limiting the FPS is not enough and anyone still using Blitz should be using Tweening. This however does not correct the 30fps issue with Windows 8. |
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| I've been playing Medal of honor underground. Levels mostly, but then I got bored and did two player. It was cool because it gave me a chance to see Manon, the main character, who I usually only see the hands of. Then I made her strafe... man, she was like lightning going across the screen! But I'd say it was a humanly possibly speed. As for the framerate, I think it had to be like 15fps because it was splitsceen, and yet still she looked great. I'm not saying I'd recommend 15, but keep in mind, it's content over quality. It was the fact that it was her skipping around like a little french ninja that I liked, and that was not overshadowed by the low framerate at all. By the way, for anyone who prefers over 30fps, may I assume correctly that Windows 8 does run 1024 at speeds higher than 30? If so, why not just readjust everything to fit the bigger screensize? And that's me saying that, I love 640. But a size conversion like that wouldn't be too much work, and then you wouldn't have to worry about the fps anymore. One other thing I want to say about all this is, consider the fact that every last arcade game is now playable on Mame32. Blitz3d isn't going to just vanish because of every new os incompatibility that comes down the pike. I believe devoted people will keep it working because of its quality. |
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| may I assume correctly that Windows 8 does run 1024 at speeds higher than 30? No. It is a DX7 issue not a resolution issue. |
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| By the way, for anyone who prefers over 30fps, may I assume correctly that Windows 8 does run 1024 at speeds higher than 30? If so, why not just readjust everything to fit the bigger screensize? And that's me saying that, I love 640. But a size conversion like that wouldn't be too much work, and then you wouldn't have to worry about the fps anymore. *bafflement* Aside from what GaryV points out... where did you get the resolution figures from? Blitz3D has always supported variable-resolution games, right from the start. There is definitely no 640-convention, and anyone hardcoding their game resolution is - and always has been - a terrible developer. Assuming anything about the user's supported fullscreen resolution (especially that anyone still cares about or supports 640x480) is a completely unacceptable cardinal sin of game development. Anyone doing this has way bigger problems than Windows 8 compatibility. |
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| So all Blitz3d fullscreen resolutions on Windows 8 run at 30fps? I thought it was just 640. Any word on it affecting the logic yet? |
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