PureGDK Open Beta - DarkBasic for PureBasic

[Alquerian]

DarkGDK is not any more stable than DarkBasic Professional other than the fact that it does not suffer from the language bugs, like which PureGDK . It uses the same engine and is neither better or worse. DarkGDK is not updated more than DarkBasic Professional. If so many of you pride DarkGDK then why not PureGDK? It works with PureBasic!

I'm porting a complete and very capable 3D engine to PureBasic. Can't you appreciate the value of that? If you don't like DarkBasic please move and stop crapping in my thread.

For those of you unfamiliar with U6 The Game Creators worked directly with the community on a massive bug-athon which squished bugs daily. Most of the bugs in long-standing bugs in DarkBasic Professional were fixed then and even more are continuing to be fixed.

I have a Love-Hate relationship with Dark Basic Pro. I have been using DBP for ~3 years now and have been a member of it's community for more than 2. I have seen it progress from version 5x to current 6.6 and with it many improvements. Currently I very much love DBP, I was not so impressed during the 5.x days of DBP and rightly so. One of the things that I currently hate about DBP is it's public skepticism which is often times dished out by under-informed and bias individuals. If the current version of DBP were given a fair shake, they might be eating their words. My second irritation about DBP is a universal complaint about it's disappointing, swiss-cheese-like documentation, riddled with errata and sorely lacking. DBP has many great strengths, they may not be the strengths which you are looking for but they are what makes DBP one of the most widely used 3D engine/language today. There are few other languages that you can use which allows you to get your hands dirty with development within 10 mins of installing. DBP can provide amazing eye-candy and that is what draws many people to it, personally I began using it because I had many large and demanding tasks and an even more demanding timeline. DBP was the perfect solution even though I was already familiar with many other 3d engines. Rapid-Development coupled with a large and supportive community is what won me over with DBP. These are the same reasons why I like PureBasic (that and it is insanely fast and small).

Suffice to say, Mistrel has put in a lot of effort and his accomplishments are not something to be scoffed at, especially here where everyone should be supportive of such large PureBasic achievements. 2/3rds of the DarkGDK examples didn't work right without modifications, so I am not surprised that some are having problems with the first widely-tested PureGDK samples either, especially for being a 1-man dev team.

I can see incredible value in PureGDK for DBP. Firstly, it provides an alternative GUI, better bug-tracking, and full integration into the DBP and commercial and TPC DLLs.

Kudos Mistrel! We hope to see this progress, some of us actually appreciate your work a great deal.

[BriceManuel]

DarkGDK is not updated more than DarkBasic Professional.

That is not true. DarkGDK had a major update released in November of 2007. The were significant bug fixes, stability fixes made to get it up to Microsoft's "standards" for the VC++ 2008 Express deal.

It is also based on a newer version of DX (August 2007 release).

Those fixes have not been integrated into DarkBasic Pro, yet. The last update to DarkBasic Pro was March 2007.

Even DarkBasic Classic has been updated more recently than DBPro as DBC had an update released in October 2007.

Info strictly taken from official newsletters and forums.

If so many of you pride DarkGDK then why not PureGDK? It works with PureBasic!

You can't compare. They are two different products. DarkGDK is more stable and more current than DBPro and is written in VC++. Anything made with DBPro uses DBPro's half-assed compiler and currently uses an "older" version of the actual 3D engine.

I'm porting a complete and very capable 3D engine to PureBasic. Can't you appreciate the value of that?

Everybody appreciates that.

Unfortunately, sampb has posed some legitimate concerns about your product which you are not addressing, and Kale brings up some legitimate points. With your confusion over DarkGDK and DBPro, I guess I would have some concerns, too.

You keep stating the DB problems are with the language and not the engine, but yet your product requires the language and not the standalone engine. This is contradictory.

Since you haven't explained what is actually going on. People do not know if you are simply wrapping the engine that comes with DBPro or if your product is preprocessing PB code to DBPro code and then compiling it.

I think what sampb is really asking is since your product is using DBPro (which is a language and not an engine) how can you assure him that your product will not suffer from the known issues with DBPro, as you yourself even say there are problems with the language?

Personally, I haven't had a chance to try your product yet. I haven't found my DBPro CD yet, but I did find my DBPro USB registration dongle. All your examples though are very impressive!

[Kale]

For those of you unfamiliar with U6 The Game Creators worked directly with the community on a massive bug-athon which squished bugs daily. Most of the bugs in long-standing bugs in DarkBasic Professional were fixed then and even more are continuing to be fixed.

I might be totally wrong 'cos it's been a long while, but am i right in thinking that the U6 bug hunt was over a 1½ year ago and only lasted a week?

The reason i left the DB Pro community was that bugs where being found on a daily basis and were not even being looked at for months. Then they would put a [confirmed] tag on em and leave them for a year before doing something about them. I mean come on, read the bug section on the DBPro forums, it has the dates on the individual bugs.

The DB Pro team were more interested in coding the next instalment of the FPS creator or that learner driver software, only fixing those bugs that hindered their progress on their commercial titles.

That being said your PureGDK does look very nice and a lot of work has gone into it. Pity you didn't choose Irrlicht or OGRE.

I'm going more this way: http://www.blade3d.com/

[darryl_bartlett]

I noticed some people were getting a "Wrong Compiler" error. I was initially getting this first, but I have found the solution.

It seems I have to select the Debugger -> Use Debugger" menu option in order to successfully compile a PureGDK source.

This has the disadvantage that if I compile using Compile -> Compile With Debugger, I have to select Debugger -> Kill Program to stop it correctly.

The other disadvantage is if you select the Compile -> Compile Without Debugger, an error box which just says "Error. Line 1. File : " is displayed and the game doesn't run.


I am using PureBasic v4.10 full version (i.e. not the demo version).

Hope that helps.

[sigi]

With Debugger on i can only compile 4 of the examples. Can you compile all Examples ?

[darryl_bartlett]

Hi Sigi,

I have just tried all 19 examples and they have all compiled and run successfully - I just had to remember to re-select Debugger -> Use Debugger after loaded each individual example.

Do you get any specific error? As another check, I am using DBPro v1.066 and PureBasic 4.10.

[sigi]

I have DBPro 1.066 too and PB 4.10 full. Except the 4 examples that
worked i get the following error:

Could not understand command at line 26.

I have always Debugger on.

[darryl_bartlett]

I may be wrong, but to me that sounds like the kind of error the DBPro compiler throws when it is trying to compile a keyword in the source code and it cannot find that keyword in any of the extensions/DLLs stored in either the plugins-licensed or plugins-user folders (stored within the compiler directory).

For example, some of the examples may required the Advanced Terrain plugin but you don't have that installed on your DBPro setup.

Maybe you could list the ones which do and don't compile which may shed some light on what may be missing.

[sigi]

Examples that are working with debugger on:

matrix-2.pb
animation-1.pb
basic3d-1.pb
basic3d-3.pb


Not working:

bitmap-1.pb
camera-1.pb
music-1.pb
image-2.pb
particles-1.pb
basic3d-2.pb
basic3d-4.pb
light-1.pb
sound-1.pb
matrix-1.pb
world-1.pb
animation-2.pb
basic2d-1.pb

[darryl_bartlett]

Examining my DBPro installation, I have the following plugins:

Licenced:
AdvancedTerrain, DarkAI, DarkPhysics, Extends, Enhancement, EzRotate, Unity, DarkLights, Styx, Cloth & Particle

User:
2dpluginkit, AdvancedSprites, Matrix1Util plugins, zParticles.


So maybe PureGDK requires one or more of these by default.

I don't really know what else to say. Hopefully Mistrel will be able to offer you more help.

[sigi]

Thank You for trying to help. I think we must wait a bit longer to use this.

[Mistrel]

DarkGDK is not updated more than DarkBasic Professional.

That is not true. DarkGDK had a major update released in November of 2007. The were significant bug fixes, stability fixes made to get it up to Microsoft's "standards" for the VC++ 2008 Express deal.

These updates do not provide DarkGDK with an updated engine that provides any advantage over DarkBasic Professional. If this is not the case Please cite your source.

Even DarkBasic Classic has been updated more recently than DBPro as DBC had an update released in October 2007.

Development on DarkBasic Classic was discontinued years ago. It received recent attention primarily due to Vista incompatibility.

Unfortunately, sampb has posed some legitimate concerns about your product which you are not addressing, and Kale brings up some legitimate points. With your confusion over DarkGDK and DBPro, I guess I would have some concerns, too.

Either you or they will have to be more specific. Linking to a few reveiws for an outdated version does not justify anything. I've also addressed Kale's concern about the the number of outstanding bugs.

You keep stating the DB problems are with the language and not the engine, but yet your product requires the language and not the standalone engine. This is contradictory.

The engine is in the dlls, similar to how the engine for DarkGDK is in its libraries. I call the commands from these and not through DarkBasic Professional thereby circumventing any bug pertaining to the language. Everything you program using PureGDK is in PureBasic except for each specific call you make to the engine.

I think what sampb is really asking is since your product is using DBPro (which is a language and not an engine) how can you assure him that your product will not suffer from the known issues with DBPro, as you yourself even say there are problems with the language?

DarkBasic Professional is and engine contained within a set of dlls like many other engines. DarkBasic is considered a language because it comes with a compiler that can create executables to link everything together.

I might be totally wrong 'cos it's been a long while, but am i right in thinking that the U6 bug hunt was over a 1½ year ago and only lasted a week?

It latested a lot longer than a week. TGC actually worked overtime past their anticipated deadline for bugs. They worked very hard that release.

The reason i left the DB Pro community was that bugs where being found on a daily basis and were not even being looked at for months.

There are still bugs like any other software but daily is not accurate of the current state of DarkBasic Professional. If you believe otherwise please cite your source.

The DB Pro team were more interested in coding the next instalment of the FPS creator or that learner driver software, only fixing those bugs that hindered their progress on their commercial titles.

The Game Creators is a company and they have many products. Although they have no spent time updating DarkBasic Professional its users have not been suffering. The latest 6.6b is very stable with few bugs that can be considered critical. One could argue that there are many times more bugs still in PureBasic than in DarkBasic. Please provide a realistic argument.

That being said your PureGDK does look very nice and a lot of work has gone into it. Pity you didn't choose Irrlicht or OGRE.

Although I cannot speak for Irrlicht, OGRE is a graphics engine not a game engine. It is advantageous to be able to program in PureBasic using the DarkBasic Professional engine because of how complete it is. It has so much more potential.

I have just tried all 19 examples and they have all compiled and run successfully - I just had to remember to re-select Debugger -> Use Debugger after loaded each individual example.

Compiling with the debugger is for debugging and will limit your performance. If you cannot compile without the debugger then you won't be able to compile to an exe. If this is the case and you have found a bug please report it.

"Error. Line 1. File : " is a PureGDK compiler bug. If your code coes not compile the first time try compiling again. It may be getting stuck in the compiler. The PureGDK compiler is known to be unstable. These bugs are not as important as runtime errors and errors relating specifically to DarkBasic.

So maybe PureGDK requires one or more of these by default.

PureGDK supports several plugins but does not require that any of them be installed to run. If you're experiencing a problem with a plugin or without a plugin please report a bug at http://puregdk.com.

[Kale]

Well each to his own i guess.

[Mistrel]

I've released an updated 0.4b that should fix the error people have been experiencing with a wrong compiler response. Please download and reinstall to fix this error.

If you still experience this bug make sure that there are no duplicate entries in your PureBasic tools (Tools -> Configure Tools) that may be pointing to an outdated Compiler.exe.

Please test and make sure that all of the examples run with and without the debugger and report any errors that you receive. If it fails to compile the first time please try again. It can fail from a problem caused by the PureGDK compiler. It's important to identify if this is a real bug or a misleading error from the intermediary compiler.

[darryl_bartlett]

Hi Mistrel.

Just wanted to confirm that the update has solved the compilation problem. Thank you for that. I must say I think PureGDK is very impressive.

FIXED THIS ISSUE -> The only issue I have now is when I try to close down a compiled exe (by clicking on the red X) that .exe just hangs. I have tried killing the process (GDKTemp.exe) using Task Manager, to no avail.

The problem with NOT with PureGDK, but with ZoneAlarm. It seems that Zone Alarm was stopping PureGDK applications from interacting with cmd.exe. Once I configured zone alarm to allow GDKTemp to access cmd.exe, everything shuts down properly.