Dawn of the Geeks

I’ve done real time software rendering in JavaScript, PHP and C++ and now will continue with Java. There are a number of reasons for the move. One is that I need to learn Java for school and I might as well do something interesting to learn it. Another is that Java apps are easily inserted into web-pages. The Javascript tutorials no longer work thanks to FireFox having a broken cache and every other browser I’ve tried not supporting the XBM format.

The first demo which just renders static can render 640×480 at 13 frames per second on a 1.74Ghz Sempron. Looking back on the C++ tutorials I was able to run the original translation of Wolf 5K at 8 frames per second at 640×480. Doing the math I would expect a 1.74Ghz machine to be able to run it at about 11 frames per second. So it’s a toss up at this point whether C++ or Java can do it better.

The final reason for using Java is that the compiler and a very good IDE (Eclipse) are entirely free. This will make it easy for visitors to easily see the code in action, download it and tweak it on their own. That was the goal with Javascript and until recently it worked well.

I don’t know when the Java clone of Wolf 5K will be available but it’s definitly a project I’ll be working on as time permits.