::: ColdSteel Engine :::

Jedive · Post by **Jedive** » Mon Aug 29, 2005 12:41 am

I have created a really simple website to announce a game engine I have been working on lately. I started it more than a year ago, but due to several reasons (specially that I haven't had much time this year with the university, the job, and such things), I couldn't dedicate as much time as I would have wanted into it.

The webpage is only to announce its features and show a few screenshots. The development is around 80%. I have to finish the audio and networking modules, fix a few bugs, and it would be ready for a Beta release

The estimated price of the product is 40€. You can use this engine with PureBasic

It uses IrrLicht for graphics rendering, AngelScript for scripting, OpenAL for audio, and HawkNL for networking.

There will be a free version of the engine (without PureBasic support, you will only be able to use ColdSteel Script in this version), with the following limitations over the Pro version:
- No .dll version of the engine.
- You can only code in ColdSteel Script.
- No OpenGL rendering (just DX9).
- Max. res: 1024x768, 16 bits.
- No particles (you may code your own particle system using billboards).
- No octree occlusion.
- No LOD-based terrain (still has static terrain support, which loads a terrain as a standard static mesh).
- No dynamic shadows.
- No bump mapping.
- No shaders.
- Does not load media from compressed packages.
- Has a watermark with the engine logo on the lower-right corner of the screen.

The webpage (check it for a feature list):
http://webs.ono.com/jedive/coldsteel/ (this is just a temp address while the domain www.coldsteelengine.com gets ready).

A demo made with ColdSteel:
http://webs.ono.com/usr020/jedive/colds ... temple.zip

Pic of the demo:

An example pic of the ColdSteel documentation:

J. Baker · Post by **J. Baker** » Mon Aug 29, 2005 1:57 am

Was it created with PureBasic?

Jedive · Post by **Jedive** » Mon Aug 29, 2005 2:06 am

No, C++. But as I said, you code games for the ColdSteel Engine in PureBasic.

MrMat · Post by **MrMat** » Mon Aug 29, 2005 2:23 am

It looks nice but i couldn't get the demo to run. After unzipping and running temple.exe it gives the error "The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000005). Click on OK to terminate the application". This is on Win XP Home SP 2 with a Radeon 9800 and DirectX 9.0c.

Jedive · Post by **Jedive** » Mon Aug 29, 2005 2:46 am

Other people has had the same error. May be related to OpenAL. Do you have any other program that uses OpenAL on your machine? If you do, copy the OpenAL32.dll library from that program into the ColdSteel demo folder, and check if it doesn't crash this time.

Post by **Dare2** » Mon Aug 29, 2005 2:48 am

Interesting.

When do you anticipate having your Alpha complete, and your final product? Anytime soon?

Jedive · Post by **Jedive** » Mon Aug 29, 2005 2:53 am

Before october, there should be a public beta available. Before the end of this year, the final version.

MrMat · Post by **MrMat** » Mon Aug 29, 2005 3:05 am

Jedive wrote:Other people has had the same error. May be related to OpenAL. Do you have any other program that uses OpenAL on your machine? If you do, copy the OpenAL32.dll library from that program into the ColdSteel demo folder, and check if it doesn't crash this time.

There was an OpenAL32.dll in Windows/System32 but copying that over made no difference. This is quite a fresh installation of Windows (i installed it two days ago) and everything is up-to-date so i don't know what could be causing it but my sound card is quite old (it's a SoundBlaster Live Value card) so maybe it is something audio related. If you have any others ideas or want anything tested let me know.

Post by **Dare2** » Mon Aug 29, 2005 3:10 am

Thanks. Consider me an interested prospect.

MrMat · Post by **MrMat** » Mon Aug 29, 2005 3:14 am

A ha! It doesn't work with hyperthreading turned on. With that off it runs fine and looks very nice

*keeps his cheapo soundcard a wee bit longer*

Jedive · Post by **Jedive** » Mon Aug 29, 2005 4:04 am

hyperthreading?

MrMat · Post by **MrMat** » Mon Aug 29, 2005 4:41 am

It's a feature on some Intel processors that makes the system think there are two processors when there is only one so that threads can be executed in parallel, usually giving a speed boost. You might be able to do something with Get/SetProcessAffinityMask() to detect if hyperthreading is turned on and force a process to run on one processor if so, but it's not something i've ever tried so i dunno.

Jedive · Post by **Jedive** » Mon Aug 29, 2005 1:54 pm

Those of you having problems with the demo, try redownloading. I have recompiled in multi-threading mode, so if the problem was with hyperthreading, maybe it would be fixed now (cannot check it myself as I don't have an Intel cpu).

HeX0R · Post by **HeX0R** » Mon Aug 29, 2005 3:07 pm

Is it supposed to look like this ?
I'm guessing i am missing something here, or maybe i need sunglasses

Post by **Polo** » Mon Aug 29, 2005 3:10 pm

I get the same as Hexor...
40euro seems much for a bundle of Irrlicht and openAL which are free, no ?