Deciding between Pure basic and dark basic

luke101 · Post by **luke101** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 2:39 am

Hello, I am interested in making games in one of these languages but cant decide between the two(pure basic and dark basic). Is there any advantages that pure basic has over dark basic? What is the speed comparison between the two? Where can I get this information if its unknown to you?

Is there any documentation I can use(Internet or book) that I can use to learn pure basic? Are there any other languages out there that are competitive with pure basic?

What are your opinoins on dark and pure basic.

Dreglor · Post by **Dreglor** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 2:46 am

well, i never programmed in dark basic but. i know what darkbasic is; a 3D gdk (Game devlopment kit)
the problem with those they is that they have alot of limits and some times cane be slow,

purebasic is fast small and has praticaly no limits (exept your hardware

)
and purebasic is still in devlopment in the 3d area so, it not as well devloped as darkbasic but i can tell you one thing: we can help!

Inner · Post by **Inner** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 3:30 am

comparison between the two?

What comparison?, there isn't any Pure Basic shines brighter than Dark Basic in more ways than it can, if you ask me. however that said it depends on what 'sort' of games you want to make, 2D or 3D. Pure basic on real competition is probably C/C++/C# and or dare I say it Blitz.

scurrier · Post by **scurrier** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 3:59 am

i have used both purebasic and dark basic
dark basic is very fast for Direct X programming and makeing 3D games is a breeze with it.
on the other hand pure basic is easy as well and fast and still have FREE upgrades unlike darkbasic i would say go with PureBasic the 3D is still young but is getting better every FREE update
dark basic was great when i first started to use it but after a made a game i had found that it wouldn't run on every computer out there haven't found that with Pure Basic. and i stopped useing Dark Basic after they wanted me to pay for the latest update. I had aleady paid $100.00 now they want $200.00 more what a rip.

but it's your choice
Sean

Hurga · Post by **Hurga** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 7:46 am

HI
I use both, Pure Basic and Dark Basic Pro. Dark Basic is no longer updated. The new DBPro is about 63 L. Its advantage is that it is very easy to create 3D. Its main disadvantage is the slow 2D-commands.
But DBPro has a incredible useful feature. You can drop a dll with a stringtable in it and add a new command to the language which is nativly supported (If ou wish, you can create also syntax highlightning and help to integrate in it).
A problem in PB is to work simulanous with 3D, sprites and plain 2d. Works well in DBPro.

An other disadv. is that DBpro does not fully support pointers (till now only with vars, Images, Sprites, Functions(in pB: Procedures) can not be pointed to). But slowly there are some dllÂ´s available that offer these capabilities.

My DPro-Progs run (till now) on all win-machines. DarkBasic has a dos-based ide, DBPro a win32 based ide, with the opp. to use an other. Acually there are some in development.

Summing up: I have the same prob to decide what language should I use.
My solution was: I bought both. And I code the game mainly in DBPro and add solutions to specific problems (some 2D for example) as a PB-dll.
Works fine so I can use the advantages from both languages.

bernardfrancois · Post by **bernardfrancois** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 8:34 am

I have experience with Dark Basic (not the pro version):

- it can be fast if you don't use the built-in collision and sprite commands

- the compiler doesn't actually compile the code, but puts the code in an exe file (so if you open it in notepad you can see your code), together with an interpreter, so your exe has always a minimum filesize of about 1.5Mb (even if your only line in your program is 'hello world')

- you really need DirectX to execute a DarkBasic exe, even if you don't use any 3D commands (for example if you make a text based adventure game)

- you can't use API commands, but you can use DLL's when you have the DarkMatter extension

- Dark Basic has been patched a lot of times, so there arent many bugs left (DBpro still has bugs, but this will be updated if you have some patience)

- Dark Basic exe's only work in Windows (or in Linux using Wine)

- The code's a bit easier, but you have less control

- There's no built-in particle system (DBpro has), but I don't think it's that difficult to code that.

- There's a good forum at darkbasicpro.com when you need some help. More people are busy with 3d stuff there (logically...)

Kale · Post by **Kale** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 12:02 pm

I have coded games in DarkBasic and DarkBasicPro, the main advantages of these are they are easy to using and quick to realise a game. The dissadvantages are they are very slow languages and very large executables (see thread in 'Off Topic' about bloaty exe's of other languages) and DBPro is buggy to the point its almost unusable, (be prepared to write loads of work-arounds).

I have binned both DarkBasic and DarkBasicPro now!

I use PureBasic for everything i want to do now, BUT!!! the 3D side of things is still in an early state. So all my 3D development is on hold until more updates are posted. There should be an update soon actually.

However when the native 3D engine in PureBasic reaches maturity it will blow all DarkBasics out of the water! advantages of PureBasic are: very very fast (almost C/C++ and in some cases faster) Very small executables and great community ready to help!