Pure speed of Purebasic

luke101 · Post by **luke101** » Mon May 03, 2004 1:52 am

Is there any other language besides C++ that is faster or the same speed as purebasic?? Also, is there any other that is as flexible as purebasic??

deadmoap · Post by **deadmoap** » Mon May 03, 2004 3:20 am

IMHO, PB is the best BASIC language I have ever seen. It's the fastest and definately the most flexible. It's only downside is it's lack of support for games. I wouldn't recommend it for games, use Blitz3D for those. But PB is the best for applications. Executables are small, too. Smaller than Visual C++ at least.

luke101 · Post by **luke101** » Mon May 03, 2004 12:58 pm

do you really think purebasic is faster than c++

Kale · Post by **Kale** » Mon May 03, 2004 1:21 pm

do you really think purebasic is faster than c++

some speed tests have shown it can be.

Flype · Post by **Flype** » Mon May 03, 2004 1:24 pm

it depends of the programmers skills

MadMax · Post by **MadMax** » Mon May 03, 2004 1:37 pm

It's only downside is it's lack of support for games.

Why do you say that? I think PB is great for games, at least 2D games.

As for 3D, well, yes it's still a bit limited compared to Blitz3D. But hopefuly this will change.

Flype · Post by **Flype** » Mon May 03, 2004 2:33 pm

For 2d games, look at this games from B-Games and you'll see that PB is a great language even in 2d

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/darkprograms/downloads.html

freedimension · Post by **freedimension** » Mon May 03, 2004 3:11 pm

Kale wrote:
do you really think purebasic is faster than c++
some speed tests have shown it can be.

Also depends on the C++ Compiler used. Beating an open source compiler like MinGW can't be to hard for a skilled programmer.
But speed isn't everything, it's only a part of the whole puzzle - and I like puzzling in PB more than in C++

Karbon · Post by **Karbon** » Mon May 03, 2004 3:38 pm

You can write slow ASM code if you don't know what you are doing. For the most part the speed of any software depends on how you write it more than what you write it in.. PB is very, very fast for sure, but you can probably get comparable speed out of other languages if you try hard enough

GedB · Post by **GedB** » Tue May 04, 2004 10:17 am

This is true. I remember one VB guru demonstrating that the right VB code could be as fast as C.

However, what's really important is a language that gives you performance for free. I like to concentrate on my code and the problem at hand. I don't want to be fretting about optimization.

One language that is lightening fast and very power is OCaml. It's a functional language related to Lisp. http://www.ocaml.org

Raven · Post by **Raven** » Wed May 05, 2004 8:48 pm

How is PureBasic bad for games?
You can use DirectX and OpenGL natively, it actually means that you have free reign to create games however you see fit.

The only downside would actually be you don't have a built-in 3D engine to work from, but to be quite honest I think that is an advantage not a disadvantage.

If you want a good challenge to see how true this is, try converting Quake/Quake2 into PB; you'll find it alot easier than making it in DarkBASIC/Blitz3D/PlayBasic

Kale · Post by **Kale** » Thu May 06, 2004 12:39 am

PB does infact have a built-in 3D engine supplied by the OGRE engine. Admitedly this engine has not got a very mature command set yet but Fred has said more is coming.

Can't wait!

Raven · Post by **Raven** » Thu May 06, 2004 1:29 am

Yeah I know, but OGRE is very very limited.
It might be a better idea Fred to get in help so he can focus more on PB as a language; he could get an OpenGL and a DirectX guy/gal to work on an engine together.
Try to make it so that the engine commands are identical, allowing the developers to simply put down compiler ifs allowing the APi to be OpenGL if Linux and DirectX if Windows.

but allowing it so that the actual game code doesn't change one iota.
a nice cross-platforming. Just a suggestion though.

Kale · Post by **Kale** » Thu May 06, 2004 12:27 pm

he could get an OpenGL and a DirectX guy/gal to work on an engine together.

Why re-invent the wheel? OGRE is a great 3D engine, just at the minute not all commands are available in PB.

Try to make it so that the engine commands are identical, allowing the developers to simply put down compiler ifs allowing the APi to be OpenGL if Linux and DirectX if Windows.

The commands will be identical for the windows and linux version. The windows version will use directx and the linux one will use opengl.

Fred has also said in an earlier post that the ODE physics library will make its way into PB at some point too.