Pygame 2.0........ -Zack
On Feb 12, 2012, at 5:25 PM, Santiago Romero <srom...@sromero.org> wrote: > > Hi all, > I want to open a discussion that needs a deep reflexion because the answer > can "hurt" us as (mainly) 2D game programmers... > > First of all, I need to give some historical background, to give a context to > my question (you can skip it, but it will help to understand my personal > reasons to resist to "the change")... > > ------------------------------------------ > I've programmed a good number of 2D apps, demos, intros, map/sprite editors, > game-tools and games in my life (most of them lost in time or in now > faulty-optical-media backups). After some Z80 Assembler programming in the > Sinclair ZX Spectrum, I switched in 199x to PC/MSDOS writing small 2D games > and sprite editors directly in mode 13h (320x200), and it was really fun, > sharing them via modem in "Europa III BBS". All this programming was done in > either directly ASM or C+ASM. Then I switched to Slackware Linux 96 and > programmed a Sinclair ZX Spectrum emulator and some games and sprite editors > in C+Allegro. > > Although Allegro was a nice library, I found (in year 200x) SDL to be more > suitable to my needs, and was already ported to lots of platforms. It made me > remember the old nice msdos' mode 13h days, working directly with surfaces > (A000h memory address then) and having fast 2d-sprite-blitting routines. > > A few years ago I discovered python, which is the language that I prefer > currently for almost any development I do in a personal environment and > pygame, and really like it a lot. > > So, sumarizing, I'm a 2D-boy. I've written code in ASM, C, C++ and python > since 198x always using CPU power to blit sprites on apply effects to objects > or screen. I'm used to write from scratch lots of functions (rotations, > transforms, scaling, etc) instead of using libraries to do it (until I found > SDL/pygame). I don't like very much 3D game programming and 90% of my top > games in history are 2D (Lemmings, Super Mario 3/World, Street Fighter 2, > Zelda, Prince of Persia and almost any NES/SNES/PC-VGA game). > ------------------------------------------ > > And now, the question/problem/reflexion... > > Pygame performance (and SDL, and almost any 2D-programming technology before > it) it's a bit about CPU power. Ok, GPU cards help blitting, but notice that > almost all SDL/pygame games are medium resolution (640x480, 800x600), usually > fullscreen, and maybe higher resolutions for more static/non scrolling games. > > 3D games work nicely with either FullHD/HDready resolutions and you can > select easily the playing resolution and everything scales nicely. Also, 3D > games benefit a lot from GPUs acceleration and you can run them at high > resolutions at 60 fps and the GPU makes a lot of the job. > > 2D games are a "pain in the ass" to make them multiresolution and scale very > bad to high resolutions (in terms of speed). > > I'm starting to wonder how many time can I continue writing 2D programs with > the classical 2D approach. I'm wondering if maybe I have to write 2D games by > using 3D technology (opengl) to render sprites as faces in cubes with a > background-cube and a camera pointing in a "2d view". Some libraries, like > pyglet / cocos2d use this approach. > > My problem is that I like and prefer the "romantic-classic" pure 2d approach. > The pyglet/cocos idea of actors, scenes and 2d-3d modelling is not as nice > for me than the classic "oldstyle" approach... but that 3d approach really > works and their 3D-2D games work in high resolutions at full speed and in > pygame you can suffer creating a hires multilayer scrolling game at 60 fps... > > Check as an example the Raspberry Pi (http://www.raspberrypi.org). A 25US$ > Linux computer with ARM@700Mhz with OpenGL GPU that will run a fullhd pyglet > game at fullspeed (thanks to its very powerful GPU) but won't run a pygame > hires game because of lack of cpu power... The same happens in other devices > like tablets and mobile phones with android. > So, please, let's discuss about it: success cases, ideas, and opinions in > both ways: nowadays, 640x480 / 800x600 is "low res" and games must be able to > run at higher resolutions (even in HDMI output at FullHD) and in > low-cpu-but-good-gpu systems like tablets, but that implies using OpenGL and > abandoning the classic-oldstyle libraries like pygame :-(. > > Opinions? > > > -- > Santiago Romero > Ubuntu GNU/Linux > http://www.sromero.org >
