AOTMG for Intel Mac! (framework demo)

Community Forums/Showcase/AOTMG for Intel Mac! (framework demo)

Grey Alien(Posted 2007) [#1]
Yep I finally got round to compiling a Mac version of my AOTMG demo made with the Grey Alien BlitzMax Game Framework.

It works fine. There are a couple of "Windows only" features that I haven't converted to Mac yet, but I will do soon.

To find out more about the framework, please go here:

http://www.greyaliengames.com/framework.php

Enjoy!

http://www.greyaliengames.com/aotmg/AOTMGV044IntelMac.zip (5.24Mb)




jfk EO-11110(Posted 2007) [#2]
Haven't got a Mac, but this is looking good. The framework seems to become a real cross platform solution.


Grey Alien(Posted 2007) [#3]
You can try the PC one in the main Frameowkr thread if you haven't already.

Yeah I was really pleased to get it compiling on my MacBook Today. Some of my customers previously helped to convert it and I fixed a few things today and it went really well. I still want to add some features like proper icon support for Mac.

Who knows, one day there may be a Linux version...


MGE(Posted 2007) [#4]
Hey GA, just curious, on a scale of 1-10 (10 being very hard) what was the diffuculty porting your frame work to MAC? Thanks!


JazzieB(Posted 2007) [#5]
Hi GA, I'll try out this version when I get the chance, but it will be a few days before I can, as I am away from any type of PC/Mac for the next couple of days.

One thing I would say is that I noticed that you've uploaded as a ZIP file. I've actually had trouble with these keeping the correct file permissions in the past, so I would recommend that you look into using DMG files instead. This is all done with the Disk Utility, which comes as part of OSX.

EDIT - Just had a chance to quickly try this. Seems to work really well, so good job. Although not related to your framework, one thing I would say is that I tend to tailor the preference menus to the platform they are running on. Basically, you have an option to change graphics drivers where there is only one option on a Mac, which makes the option of DirectX or OpenGL redundant. No biggie, but real good work as always.


Grey Alien(Posted 2007) [#6]
MGE Developer: 2 or 3 / 10. A couple of helpful customers did some of the work for me by identifying bits that wouldn't compile and giving workarounds when I didn't have a Mac. Then today I spent quite a few hours fixing some things that didn't work perfectly (it still compiled fine - BMax is cool) but half of the issues were just me being DUMB and a Mac noob. However, I still have the main slog of stuff to do like proper icon support and minimise and detect mouse pos outside of window etc...All this works in windows but I need Mac equivalents. No doubt I'll be posting alot in a a few weeks about it. It's not urgent right now but will be mid-August. Oh and the other thing which might add to the "difficulty" rating was having to buy a Mac and learn how to use it! Other people offered to compile my games but I wanted to see for myself what worked and didn't.

JazzieB: DMB OK cool thx. Yep I know the menu still says DirectX, I put it on my to do list. For now I just wanted the thing to compile. It's very smooth on my Macbook Pro indeed. Also there is no point switching to OpenAL or DirectSound on Mac either.


ImaginaryHuman(Posted 2007) [#7]
Ok. Intel Mac Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz here.

The options screen, when you click to go to windowed mode, it did go to window mode but the window was positioned about a third of the way down the screen and so the bottom inch or so was off the bottom of the screen out of sight. My desktop resolution is 1440x900.

When changing to the Safari browser to type this message, your app correctly put itself into paused mode.

When moving the mouse off the edge of the window the game pointer seems to stay in the last position that the mouse was in inside the window rather than just disappearing - makes it seem like you're dealing with 2 mouse pointers and that makes you wonder if you have to do something extra to connect them back together.

Your framework also defaulted to DirectX. DirectX is not available on the mac, it should be OpenGL only.

In your options screen you say "fullscreen off", when in window mode, but then when the mouse moves over that button it still says fullscreen off - implies that clicking on the button will turn fullscreen off, but it's already off, so it's confusing.

I didn't see any difference between vsync on and off.

I still don't like the very `greyish` graphics. Gray is a boring color. I know you're trying to be neutral so that people who make games with it can envision their own ideas, but maybe just choose some more colorful default graphics. I guess I'm talking mainly about the rotating nebulae background and the default button color. Also the in-game background is very granular and low quality. I know you're saving space to be friendly but I think I'd rather it was good quality than looking like you grabbed it from the web. Your graphics are a little on the `programmer graphics` side and it would be an even more attractive ad for you if they were higher quality. Maybe put those artists from your other games to good use making you some better visuals. And why not show off your particle system more? The tiny trickle of particles on the mouse pointer might as well almost not be there. Why be conservative about it? You might as well show off a bit.

When the game has been paused due to clicking on another app, and you come back to it by clicking the window or the dock icon, the rotating starfield in the menu is a bit slow and jerks once before getting up to speed smoothly.

Other than that the game is very smooth and responsive running at full rate at all times. I like the menu system in general and that it operates in-game as well. I did not see any lag - I've been getting lag in general in OpenGL on my intel iMac due to the card storing several frames just like the DirectX lag on the PC - but your framework prevents this and so user input gave immediate responsiveness, which is good.

I wonder also if it would be more appealing if the game that you're demoing with it was actually `more of a game` or more playable, rather than just a placeholder. Why not inspire? Since this demo is `separate` from the actual framework itself - that the programmer would use - why not pimp it up a bit more? But I understand, maybe this is your philosophy to present it how you have, so whatever's good for you. :-)

Overall it's very nice.


Grey Alien(Posted 2007) [#8]
AngelDaniel: Glad you finally were able to test it! Thanks for your feedback. This Mac version isn't 100% sorted yet, it's like a pre-release to show my framework can at least run on the Mac.

- Window Position, yep, this centred on Windows, but not on Mac yet.
- Mouse pointer getting stuck. Again this works on Windows, need Mac code to get mouse coords relative to Desktop. Got any code?
- Framework says DX on options but it lies :) I haven't altered that screen yet.
- Fullscreen "off". Probably need to have a TCheckBox type, it's on my to do list.
- Try Vysnc off and then press D for Debug, the FPS will shoot up from 60FPS to whatever your card can handle. There will be vertical tearing on some graphics (hard to see as I don't have much moving sideways).
- Absolutely my graphics are "programmer graphics" :-) This demo can be improved graphically a lot (and gameplay wise) if I choose to do that. The fact there are *any* mouse particles is cool :-) There are more particles in-game with the explosions. But my commercial games have tons of particles. I'll get round to adding some more to the demo one day to really show it off, espially as the particle engine supports phases, animations and user-functions etc. To be honest most of my time on the framework is spent adding new features rather than enhancing the demo for sales purposes, which is better for customers but worse for me ;-)
- I'll check rotating starfield jerk on the mac. It's fine on the PC, may be something to do with how Mac restores CPU power to apps, I dunno. Perhaps you left Vysnc off? It could be the jitter correction code compensating...
- Yes I'd like to add more to the game (I have tons of ideas) but simply don't have the time. However, maybe it works being "bare bones" as people think, hmm I could make this demo sooo much better, I'll buy the framework and then add power ups, and a shop, and more aliens etc... :-)

Thanks, glad you liked it. Soon you'll be able to see my commercial games, Holiday Bonus and Wizard of Oz on Mac plus my NEW game, so keep an eye out for them!


ImaginaryHuman(Posted 2007) [#9]
Groovy, looks like you have everything under control :-)


Grey Alien(Posted 2007) [#10]
Just checked out that galaxy slow down issue. If I click the Mac desktop and then back in the game there is no slowdown, but if I call up Mozilla full screen and task swap with the bar along the bottom then yes it slows down before getting up to speed. If I run an app smaller with a smaller window like Skype, it doesn;t do it. Also if I move the mouse across that bar at the bottom the galaxy jerks a bit anyway as each icon must be doing lots of CPU stuff when the mouse moves over it which off course affects the game.

The slow down is because the Jitter Correction code has received an odd Delta value during the task swap and is trying to compensate. I can't remember if a slow down means a low or high delta value was received (I think it's a low value). I actually ignore delta values for a short period of time after a task swap and use an average delta value in order to keep stable, but perhaps my "ignore time" is too short for the Mac when switching tasks. I can push up the ignore time and see what happens.


mikelandzelo(Posted 2007) [#11]
Nice game!
I enjoyed playing it thought it was extremely short.
high fives!


Grey Alien(Posted 2007) [#12]
Banjonator: Thanks! It's not a proper game, it's a demo of my game engine. The source code for the game and the game engine is part of my Grey Alien BlitzMax Game Framework which has many users.