Running Blitz3d on a smartphone
Blitz3D Forums/Blitz3D Beginners Area/Running Blitz3d on a smartphone
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| I saw a Youtube video of a smartphone running Windows 10. Does that mean Blitz3d games would work too? I don't even have a regular cellphone, or I'd test it myself. If they do work, what happens when the horizontal viewing mode is activated? Assuming it rotates correctly, should Graphics3d be setup in expectation of it being played that way, since as far as I know there's no command for detecting the change? I'm pretty sure there's no commands for touchscreen controls either, so you'd need a smartphone with a tactile keyboard. How many smartphone users have those now, and Windows 10 for that matter? I know that's a lot of questions, but it's just to consolidate threads. |
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| I'm pretty sure there's no commands for touchscreen controls either Yes that's a problem. But if it is similar to Windows 8.1 tablets, the touchhit is recognized as a mouselefthit, so you can have a GUI with buttons to click... (not sure if the touchdown is recognized has a mouseleftdown...) |
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| Does that mean Blitz3d games would work too? No. The OS may be called Windows and provide a similar set of toplevel features, but if it's running on a phone, it'll be completely different under the hood. It won't include the same low-level features Blitz3D is built on, and the phone itself will run completely different machine code from the desktop x86 Blitz3D generates. |
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| Good, I can go back to ignoring smartphones. It's just when I saw a picture of one with a slideout keyboard tray, and then the Windows 10 video, I was like, hmm, maybe I should take them into account for my game. But I guess not, now. Still might be fun to see what happens though. Has anyone here tried? Do they just not even startup, or do they run and not work right? |
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| It's not completely out of the question: http://www.neowin.net/news/syncphone-is-a-windows-10-handset-with-a-54-display-intel-atom-cpu-8gb-ram-and-20mp-camera I don't know if this will ever exist, but it's interesting. |
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| Great link. Well, my immediate reaction to smartphones has always been to not touch any device that doesn't have a keyboard. Even with one, the layout of the menus and stuff has always really bugged me. But most people seem to be fine with them, so I always just figured they'd never change. Yet now here we are, more and more of them have keyboards, and as your link shows, there's a clear effort to make more and more of them be able to run the same Windows as a tower or laptop. Maybe soon they all will, and if that happens, smartphones will basically be like netbooks that fit in your pocket. Then even I, who have always loathed smartphones, would probably buy one. You know, just to test out my Blitz3d programs ;) |
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| There's a lot to be said for having a networked computer in your pocket. The lack of a real keyboard gets less important every year. Voice recognition on my Android phone is already remarkably good. I do wish it was easier to write programs for it. |
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| @Floyd: It actually *is* pretty easy to write your own programs(apps/2D-games) for Android thanks to Google's API and for instance B4A(Basic4Android), so no need to get into Java. You can even use the voice recognition features and all other stuff like sensors, touch, etc for your own apps(if tried: very easy to do and works like a charm). Check out the links on this thread for a 2D FlappyBird clone, first done in BlitzPlus then in B4A: http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=102205 3D games however is bit more challenging, which I find a bit of a pity. On the other hand, it's been a while since I delved into that and perhaps things changed for the better.(anyone? :-) Monkey X is also a possibility too, but haven't got too much experience on that, since when I had to choose I decided on B4A for it's sheer simplicity(like Blitz3D/Plus). Same reason why I don't like Max too much I guess. |
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| the biggest limitation here is that B3D requires windows on an Intel x86 compatible device, AND it uses directX 7. Most windows 10 phones do not run intel, but ARM -- B3D will never work on those devices. If you DO have an x86 windows version on a phone it /may/ work, except I have a sneaky suspicion that you won't have the necessary DirectX 7 backwards compatibility either -- It's a pretty stripped down version of windows they run on those devices. (Aside from that -- does MS even allow you to sideload any applications, or does everything have to be downloaded & installed through their official app store) |
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| @Rick and Floyd - java is a fairly simple language to learn in my opinion, both of you are more than competent coders so I should think you'd have little difficulty with it. Re: 3D - there are libraries, such as JPCT-AE which is quite blitzlike in some ways (for a java library). Probably the biggest hurdle for someone who is used to blitz like languages is the whole idea of a 'project' rather than a single source file where a host of source-like files are used to compile the game - but IDEs like Eclipse do make it fairly easy. The difficulty, as with anything, is the initial learning phase that you have to go through. |
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| There is another basic for android, its called Rfo Basic! Its free and able to compile the programs as apk's. Google Playstore - Rfo Basic! |
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Xlsior, did you go to the link in post five? From what I can tell, Windows phones are being abandoned, phones that run the dumbed down version of Windows 10 are not well liked, and so the people reported about at the link are trying to make it so more phones will be able to run the real version of Windows 10. Also, the Directx thing was I think concluded at http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=104902. You have to deal with a Directplay install query, but it works. So hopefully if they're able to get the real Windows 10 working on more phones, Blitz3d will work on them too. I say hopefully, because if in a couple years everyone's got Windows with a slideout keyboard in their pocket, that's basically a Gameboy in my eyes, so I'll try to make sure my game works on it. |
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| @Matty: True, Java isn't *that* hard to learn. One can just follow the online tutorials that come with the Android SDK. But once I got my hands on B4A the development time got so drastically reduced and was rewarding far more quickly then(I must be lazy: I don't like girls that are playing hard to get ;-) . @Dan: I know about RFO basic. I tried that first, but at the time was fitted with malware according to some people and antivirus apps. Also it's(or was, I didn't follow up on it) not nearly as easy to use and advanced as B4A. |
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| Interesting stuff About Windows 10 and Blitz3D / DX7 - it runs AMAZING on Windows 10 ! Butter. Microsoft have gone wild supporting everything, check my post in Win32 section |
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| But it's optimistic! The 80s are over, no one wants to hear happy stuff anymore ;P |
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