#13602 - dist0rted - Thu Dec 18, 2003 4:37 am
I'm doing DirectDraw7 Animations and Bitmaps and have gotten a pretty long way into game programming. I was wondering if GameBoy Advance developement was harder than computer games, or pretty much the same thing.
Any advice is greatly appreciated.
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#13603 - jd - Thu Dec 18, 2003 5:30 am
If what you're doing on DirectDraw isn't any more complex than what you'd do on the GBA then I'd say DirectDraw is much easier because you're not having to push the platform anywhere near as much. You've also got nice things like memory protection to make development easier.
#13604 - poslundc - Thu Dec 18, 2003 5:37 am
Don't know a thing about DirectDraw... but if you are confident enough with low-level C (ie. working with pointers and pointer arithmetic, understanding the internal representations of datatypes on hardware, etc.) then you can probably learn GBA programming easily enough from one of the tutorials on the gbadev.org main site. (The Pern Project is pretty popular for people starting out.)
GBA programming can be very much like computer game programming, but it depends on the computer, the operating system, and the interface to that OS. The GBA has no operating system, so you might be in unfamiliar waters if you've only ever worked with event-driven OSes. But if you've ever had to program a game's event loop from scratch then you should feel right at home.
BTW, there's a Beginners forum for "Beginner Question"s. :)
Dan.
#13609 - XeroxBoy - Thu Dec 18, 2003 7:28 am
DirectX programming is fairly contrived and requires a great deal of memorization (or at least a rather large reference card) of a great deal of structures. GBA programming is quite a bit simplier in that regard, requiring usage of only a small number of fairly easy to use structures. It also has a lot of useful built-in hardware support for rotation, scrolling, etc. that must, generally, be implemented in software in DirectDraw.
| Quote: |
| I'd say DirectDraw is much easier because you're not having to push the platform anywhere near as much. |
I'd say that it's easier to program for the GBA than DirectDraw - on the other hand, one might say that it's far more difficult on the GBA to program it well.
#13628 - haduken - Thu Dec 18, 2003 8:21 pm
GBA graphics is EASY! It's easier than Macintosh graphics, and those of you who have done Mac programming know that that's saying ALOT.
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#13631 - poslundc - Thu Dec 18, 2003 9:20 pm
| haduken wrote: |
| GBA graphics is EASY! It's easier than Macintosh graphics, and those of you who have done Mac programming know that that's saying ALOT. |
I dunno about that... Mac graphics are pretty damned easy if you just let Cocoa do the work for you.
Dan.
#13659 - haduken - Sat Dec 20, 2003 1:04 am
| poslundc wrote: |
| haduken wrote: | | GBA graphics is EASY! It's easier than Macintosh graphics, and those of you who have done Mac programming know that that's saying ALOT. |
I dunno about that... Mac graphics are pretty damned easy if you just let Cocoa do the work for you.
Dan. |
Hmm,.. I've never had the opportunity to program in Cocoa. I've got an old 6500/225. Bah. But the GBA is easier than MY Mac at least. (Plus I've never had my GBA crash on me, heh)
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#13662 - dagamer34 - Sat Dec 20, 2003 2:03 am
GBA is easier than DirectDraw because you know everything that happens to your system. No need to check fro an outside Windows message every frame or reserve some of the RAM so the computer doesn't crash.
One drawback is that the system doesn't improve (at this point, neither does DirectDraw). But there are so many neat little tricks you can do.
Remember the first time you played Mario Kart (SNES or GBA version). Though it was 3D, right?? Those are the things you can pull of on this system, and its as simple as setting the right registers!
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#13671 - poslundc - Sat Dec 20, 2003 4:59 am
| haduken wrote: |
| Hmm,.. I've never had the opportunity to program in Cocoa. I've got an old 6500/225. Bah. But the GBA is easier than MY Mac at least. (Plus I've never had my GBA crash on me, heh) |
I love Cocoa... it makes programming event-driven apps ridiculously straightforward once you've had a little practice at it. Interface Builder is SWEET.
Plus I had to learn Objective C to use it, which it turns out is the first object-oriented language I've come across that hasn't made me want to put my fist through the computer's monitor. (Except perhaps JavaScript, but that doesn't really count.)
You must be one heck of a coder. I rarely go through a solid day of programming without crashing my GBA.
Dan.
#13708 - yaustar - Sun Dec 21, 2003 2:45 am
I would say GBA since anything to do with Windows just scares me :(.
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#13718 - ampz - Sun Dec 21, 2003 12:50 pm
| yaustar wrote: |
| I would say GBA since anything to do with Windows just scares me :(. |
Yeah..
After writing ten pages of C-code you have either managed to open a window in windows, or write a super mario clone on the GBA.
#13730 - haduken - Sun Dec 21, 2003 6:54 pm
| poslundc wrote: |
You must be one heck of a coder. I rarely go through a solid day of programming without crashing my GBA.
|
Nah, I just hardly ever do any GBA programming. (I guess I'm still a beginner...)
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#13751 - dagamer34 - Mon Dec 22, 2003 5:42 am
I didn't know it was possible to crash the gba. I didn't know someone could write a windows app that DOESN'T crash.
I learned something new today.
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Little kids and Playstation 2's don't mix. :(
#13756 - sgeos - Mon Dec 22, 2003 8:54 am
| dagamer34 wrote: |
| I didn't know it was possible to crash the gba. I didn't know someone could write a windows app that DOESN'T crash. |
Huge umbrella statements are silly. Hello world... hello world... hello world...
-Brendan
#13764 - dagamer34 - Mon Dec 22, 2003 3:42 pm
I was being sarcastic. But really, unless you are a testing code you have never used before, you shouldn't be able to crash the gba.
On the other hand, I have written code to set up DirectDraw several times and have managed to screw something up every time. I think that's why everyone uses C++ when programming Windows: too many ways to mess up and it takes too long to debug.
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Little kids and Playstation 2's don't mix. :(
#13765 - poslundc - Mon Dec 22, 2003 3:47 pm
| dagamer34 wrote: |
| I was being sarcastic. But really, unless you are a testing code you have never used before, you shouldn't be able to crash the gba. |
What exactly do you mean by this? All code I write is code that I've never used before.
Dan.
#13780 - AcidGame - Mon Dec 22, 2003 7:12 pm
I would say GBA developing is easy. I tried learning DirectDraw for a GameEngine in VB6 but it didnt work.. without a single tutorial i created what i wanted in that engine for the gba in half the time i tried. ~_~
(obviously it was something easy. :P )