Eclipse 3.0 - True upgrade?

[Robicus]

Heya, I have a question. I've read the Engine Development section which exhibits the new features planned for the next version of Eclipse, 3.0\. My question is:

**Is the engine still going to be coded in VB6?**

If not, can I poke and try to find a motive to as why? Imagine upgrading it to .net - could accomplish the following:

- You could open it up to multiple OS's and not be limited to Windows alone.
- You could also program it for PalmPilots and HandHelds.
- By using XNA, you could make it playable with XBOX360, in conjunction with their new interface.
- You could have multi-threaded servers which would allow for thousands of players to be connected at once, with no lag (VB is single-threaded).
- ECT.

Comments? :D

[zade_o]

TBH. The only bonus there is the thousands of players, but again, tbh how many of these games are gonna attract thousands of players …

[kris_hole]

Probably not many but there is slight chance that someone could hit semi decent numbers lol. but saying that just get an uber computer and a decent internet and you'[d b okay for a relitively sized server capacitance

[Robicus]

The points I mentioned are kind of out-stretched points, very plausible, but some of the more eccentric ones. I only mentioned a few things and the main point is why stick with something so old when you can improve and take advantage of the newer oppurtunities.

Just some thoughts.

[Godlord]

@Robicus:

> Heya, I have a question. I've read the Engine Development section which exhibits the new features planned for the next version of Eclipse, 3.0\. My question is:
>
> **Is the engine still going to be coded in VB6?**
>
> If not, can I poke and try to find a motive to as why? Imagine upgrading it to .net - could accomplish the following:
>
> - You could open it up to multiple OS's and not be limited to Windows alone.
> - You could also program it for PalmPilots and HandHelds.
> - By using XNA, you could make it playable with XBOX360, in conjunction with their new interface.
> - You could have multi-threaded servers which would allow for thousands of players to be connected at once, with no lag (VB is single-threaded).
> - ECT.
>
> Comments? :D

Native support for .NET is only official on Microsoft Windows, so your mutli-operating system argument isn't true. It would've been if it was just C/C++.

C/C++ allows you to write it for every device if you've got the right compilerset, of course. So .NET isn't really great.

Multi-threaded servers can cause lag, in fact they just average the delay time for each client so if somebody has lag, another client would also experience this.

@Robicus:

> The points I mentioned are kind of out-stretched points, very plausible, but some of the more eccentric ones. I only mentioned a few things and the main point is why stick with something so old when you can improve and take advantage of the newer oppurtunities.
>
> Just some thoughts.

New isn't always better than old:

Assembly > C/C++ > .NET Framework-based languages.

To be simplistic. Indeed VB6 is old and pretty crappy, but does it make it worse than VB.NET then? Not really. Also Microsoft's products aren't really good at all.

Besides, EE 3.0 has been improved to be more portable to .NET.

Regards,
  Godlord.

[glamdering]

@Godlord:

> Native support for .NET is only official on Microsoft Windows, so your mutli-operating system argument isn't true. It would've been if it was just C/C++.
>
> C/C++ allows you to write it for every device if you've got the right compilerset, of course. So .NET isn't really great.
>
> Multi-threaded servers can cause lag, in fact they just average the delay time for each client so if somebody has lag, another client would also experience this.
> New isn't always better than old:
>
> Assembly > C/C++ > .NET Framework-based languages.
>
> To be simplistic. Indeed VB6 is old and pretty crappy, but does it make it worse than VB.NET then? Not really. Also Microsoft's products aren't really good at all.
>
> Besides, EE 3.0 has been improved to be more portable to .NET.
>
> Regards,
>   Godlord.

well with the .net you can run it in linux fine with wine

but besides the point i think they should add some things i have used on other 2d editors such as you can select more then one square at ones and copy its texture and repast it even out of the tile sets (makes trees a lot easier and that kinda stuff)

and unlimited layers it allows you to pick a layer number and if its a fringe,ground, or mask so you have unlimited instead of just 1 ground 2masks and 2 fringes

i know you can get by with the slandered amount but i found many cases were it would be nice to have more

[gizmo1]

i prefer the engine to be rewriten in C++ or C#. i would love to catch on to C# quickly if you guys written it in that language, it took me a day to learn vb6.

[Lenton]

Is c and c++ made by microsoft?

[AdrianC]

You can already select more then 1 tile in the map editor, just hold shift.  3.0 will have 256 layers. c++ is not made by microsoft although they do have their own compiler.

Did i miss anything?

[Lenton]

But I googled "c++" and it came up with youtube vids which where microsoft c++..

[Godlord]

> well with the .net you can run it in linux fine with wine

Can you read? I said "native". I could also have said that you could use Mono, but is that natively? Perhaps, but is it official? Not at all.

@Lenton:

> Is c and c++ made by microsoft?

No. C is made by Dennis Ritchie, C++ is made by Bjarne Stroustrup so not Microsoft.

@Lenton:

> But I googled "c++" and it came up with youtube vids which where microsoft c++..

Microsoft C++ IDE or Compiler perhaps. The only C++ Microsoft "made" is C++.NET and C++ using a modified standard which are no real inventions at all. Microsoft is in no way the creator of C/C++, esspecially because C was first designed for UNIX not for DOS.

Regards,
  Godlord.

[coolballer]

I would personally say reprogram Eclipse into C/C++ using SDL library. With UDP Networking much faster then tcp.

just my 2 cents. Even tho a rewrite alot of time.. I think it would longer expand eclipse into the future. Because to me i see cross platform being more popular.

[Homicidal Monkey]

who is it that mentioned C#? Why use C#? Its 4% of all the applications out there. VB is more than 2x more. [Source](http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html) C++ is more ideal. Java (yeah, Java) is the ideal language for Eclipse because of its true multi-platform and free compiler. Java *may* be 1/10 the speed of VB6, but its much better at multithreading. Oh, EE3.0 can take that hit. It renders 12x faster than EE2.7\. **We are however using vb6.**

EE3.0 is designed for more compatibility towards the .net framework. I transcoded several things to be more usable. Oh, and VB6 is multithreaded. It includes of 1 sequence thread, and 1 thread per class library.

[Godlord]

@Chris!:

> I would personally say reprogram Eclipse into C/C++ using SDL library. With UDP Networking much faster then tcp.
>
> just my 2 cents. Even tho a rewrite alot of time.. I think it would longer expand eclipse into the future. Because to me i see cross platform being more popular.

UDP is also a lot more unreliable than TCP and when adding several checks for your UDP packets, you'll end up having some slow TCP protocol. UDP is only faster when you don't need to always receive the packets or to receive them in the right order. Which usually isn't the case.

Regards,
  Godlord.

[Skieth]

lol….assembly eclipse? XD

[gizmo1]

@Lenton:

> But I googled "c++" and it came up with youtube vids which where microsoft c++..

yes but its differnet, its called VC++ 2008\. i prefer C++ because of the compiler

[zombie0hour]

Well vb.net would be nice as all mirage based games and engines need to make the switch to a newer and more powerful programming language to open the doors up for everyone.  The new microsoft operating system comes out next year. I doubt it will support vb6 like vista does. C++, or java would be two great languages for eclipse to export to as they have cross platform support.

[Homicidal Monkey]

@Zombie0hour:

> Well vb.net would be nice as all mirage based games and engines need to make the switch to a newer and more powerful programming language to open the doors up for everyone.  The new microsoft operating system comes out next year. I doubt it will support vb6 like vista does. C++, or java would be two great languages for eclipse to export to as they have cross platform support.

java is the ideal export for cross-platform. C++ is the ideal export for performance. Im all for converting to another language, probably java for the compatibility. It also has its own 3D API, ill give it a look after 3.0 is completed.

[ddunit]

Sounds good Simius =). I can basicly modify any language cause, values are easy to understand <3

[gizmo1]

same here :P, i can do java better then vb, plus the game can be browser based :P.

[Homicidal Monkey]

@•:

> same here :P, i can do java better then vb, plus the game can be browser based :P.

only if you host the client through the built in html server or some program like apache.

[gizmo1]

yes, that is what is hard. i'm a noob when it comes to webhosting :P, i don't even know how to set up a domain lol.

[Pickle]

@Simius:

> java is the ideal export for cross-platform. C++ is the ideal export for performance. Im all for converting to another language, probably java for the compatibility. It also has its own 3D API, ill give it a look after 3.0 is completed.

I'm gonna poke my head in here and say that Java, with the new VMs, has raw speed for operations comparable to C++ (can't remember source but it's out there somewhere). Use some of the very good OpenGL bindings avaliable for Java and it'll probably wind up being faster than VB6.

Problem with all of this is that you have to pretty much rewrite the whole damn thing.

[Homicidal Monkey]

@Pickle:

> I'm gonna poke my head in here and say that Java, with the new VMs, has raw speed for operations comparable to C++ (can't remember source but it's out there somewhere). Use some of the very good OpenGL bindings avaliable for Java and it'll probably wind up being faster than VB6.
>
> Problem with all of this is that you have to pretty much rewrite the whole damn thing.

not really. Ive got a client.jar file that functions very similar to the winsock.ocx object. Also, ive made an OpenGL module that functions similar to the DX8 module. Only difference is that it cannot yet um, alphablend.