GP2X Easing Graphics Programming?


abigsmurf

Member
Joined
Apr 4, 2004
Messages
436
I've got (what I think is) a brilliant idea for a puzzle and I'm looking to create my first game in C/C++ for the GP2X. Although I've a medium amount of experience in C (2 years of uni worth), Graphics confused the hell out of me. The two reasons for this was not understanding the screen buffer and the lecturer forcing us to use rather weird update functions.

Will there be any API's that take most the hassle out of 2d programming that will be compatible with the GP2X out of the box or that already are around and will be compatible with it?

All I'd basically want is functions that load a sprite with images from files which you then just move around in the program and just using a simple draw() type function which automatically will draw all active sprites without having to worry about the screen buffer and such.

Too much too soon do you reckon?
 
You may want to mess around with SDL as the GP2X will be supporting that API. I have no personal experience with it though.
 
I can't wait to get flash running on the gp2x. I'm a flash games developer by trade, see, so we will get lots of games for free doing this :). GPLFlash ahoy!
 
Flash is nice for web games but it seems that flash is quite limited in terms of game length. However, that might be just that I've yet to see a really good Flash game. The great thing about Flash is that you can get some really good art, like loads of animations, while keeping the filesize down. But it's not like they can't be a lot of fun to play even though they are short so I welcome Flash on GP2X.
 
Great tutorial btw. Don't have time to go through everything but it's seems quite well made and easy to learn from. I never even tried C/C++ and it was nice to see how fast you get to learn those effects and it's nice to have that game example. I'm getting even more exited about developing for GP2X now :)
 
The game length in flash is mostly limited by the developer, not flash itself. Basically, you can compare flash to fenix. Both run native code on a machine-specific engine (virtual machine). Especially flash 7 (and now 8) which have very powerful scripting languages. I love action script 2.0 - pretty much java (object oriented) with no less functionallity.
 
pea posted on Sep 19 2005 at 08:17 AM said:
I can't wait to get flash running on the gp2x. I'm a flash games developer by trade, see, so we will get lots of games for free doing this :). GPLFlash ahoy!
You'll need to port GPLFlash first though. I think GPLFlash uses X11, not SDL, and it looks like GPLFlash2 uses opengl for the rendering engine, so neither are likely to compile without modification for the gp2x. You may even have to do as much modification as you would to port to the gp32.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
pea posted on Sep 19 2005 at 02:17 AM said:
I can't wait to get flash running on the gp2x. I'm a flash games developer by trade, see, so we will get lots of games for free doing this :). GPLFlash ahoy!
I know tuns of AS, but I never do anything with it. Maybe if you get flash working, ill dev some games for flash8 on it :D
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I think GPLFlash uses X11, not SDL, and it looks like GPLFlash2 uses opengl for the rendering engine, so neither are likely to compile without modification for the gp2x. You may even have to do as much modification as you would to port to the gp32.

http://gplflash.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/mo...gi/BuildFromCvs
I know that it at least uses SDL from the link above. If the graphics routines are abstracted enough it shouldn't be difficult to swap the openGL ones for replacements. Still a lot of work overall though - but how great would it be!

EDIT: Sorry, it uses both:
http://gplflash.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/mo...HighLevelDesign

OpenGL for fast rendering and low CPU usage
SDL for sound management
Libjpeg for compressed embedded textures
zlib for on the fly flash file decoding
ffmpeg for SVQ3 video and MP3 sound
libxml2 for XML/Web services functions
libfreetype2 for True Type II support
X11 for fonts, mouse and keyboard
 
Back
Top