Darkbasic for vista

What makes DarkBASIC so popular is that it provides users with the ability to quickly and easily write graphically intense programs that utilize the latest 3D graphics cards. It only takes a few simple commands to load a 3D model with full texturing and lighting enabled, and to move that model around on the screen.

To help you get a feel for what DarkBASIC is all about, let me show you some additional examples that demonstrate its capabilities. At the same time, a DarkBASIC program listing is significantly shorter than similar source code written in most languages. Jet Ski Demo. This program, also written by Lee Bamber, reminds me of WaveRace on the Nintendo 64, featuring some awesome wave effects. Room Demo. Room Demo , also included with DarkBASIC and written by Lee Bamber, demonstrates special water effects, 3D character animation, ball-bouncing physics, rain effects, translucent water, and triggers that open and close doors see Figure 1.

The player's ship, aliens, projectiles, and even the score are rendered in 3D, while the camera angle represents the game in a 2D setting.

This is a great way to enhance a game that would otherwise be limited to 2D. Tank Demo. The tank moves realistically over the terrain, angling up, down, left, and right depending on the angle of the ground.

Tank Demo also employs recoil physics, smoke, fog on the horizon, moving clouds, fire, transparent surfaces, and realistic terrain damage when a projectile explodes on the ground. By changing the camera angle to an overhead view, this game could be turned into a real-time strategy RTS game. It could also be a fantastic tank battle game for multiple players by adding multiplayer connectivity, destructible buildings, base camps, and power-ups!

What about Windows and DirectX? What makes it all possible? Not only must you interface with Windows, but you must also learn how to program the DirectX SDK, all before you are even able to start on your game. In contrast, DarkBASIC handles those details in the background and lets you start working on your goal right away, without any extra work.

Microsoft's DirectX game development library is comprised of components that abstract the computer system, providing a common set of interfaces regardless of the underlying hardware such as the video card and sound card. Hardware manufacturers, such as Nvidia makers of the GeForce4 Graphics Processing Unit and Creative Labs makers of the Sound Blaster Audigy sound card include DirectX drivers with their products so that all games developed in current or earlier versions of DirectX will run without incident.

Suppose you have a great idea for a game that you want to develop. First you need to write your own DirectX library suited for the type of game you are planning.

This library should include the 2D or 3D graphics engine that powers your game, as well as support for sound effects, background music, user input devices including force-feedback joysticks, if applicable , and multiplayer networking if your game will support more than one player.

It is a rare game today that is released with no built-in multiplayer capabilities. One exception that comes to mind is Sid Meier's Civilization III —a deep and engaging turn-based strategy game that is perhaps not practical in a multiplayer setting, but is extraordinarily fun and challenging nonetheless. But even this game has an add-on product that provides network play capability! By the time you have finished creating the core library and engine code needed to power your game, you probably will have given up on the game entirely and moved on to a new subject or game type—assuming you had the capabilities to develop a cutting-edge game engine in the first place.

An alternative is to use a game engine such as Quake III and then write a modification mod for that engine. What you need is a way to quickly , easily , and spontaneously crank out the prototype version of your game idea before you lose interest and before the complexities of game programming overwhelm you and stifle the creative enthusiasm that you felt upon coming up with the new game idea.

Not only is DarkBASIC a fantastic prototyping language that lets you get a minimal demonstration of your game up and running very quickly, it is also full-featured and loaded with awesome tools that will let you follow through and take the game to completion. Although you can and will write awesome games with DarkBASIC, you could also use it to quickly prototype a game that you plan to eventually write in a more difficult language. I'll assume that you have a computer already because that's sort of a given, right?

If you don't have a computer, I'll at least assume that you are using one at school, work, or a friend's house. From my own personal experience, you will want a much more powerful system than the minimum specs listed above; otherwise, your games will not be able to run very fast.

When it comes to writing games and graphics programs, you want a more powerful computer than the norm. Most PCs today exceed even these specs; I am being conservative with the numbers. DarkBASIC includes a rich development environment and language, runs in fullscreen mode, and is fully compatible with Windows. It runs in full-screen mode because it is more than just a programming tool—it is a complete game development environment.

Now, this is an important point. When you are running DarkBASIC and working on a game, the rest of your computer is irrelevant; you are fully engaged in what you are doing, with no distractions. Too often, the Windows user interface is a distraction! DarkBASIC features automatic double buffering, which results in super smooth animation at the highest possible frame rate using hardware 3D acceleration if your video card supports it.

Other general features include commands to play back audio-video interleave AVI movie files, create 3D sound effects, and use TrueType fonts.

I'll explain this capability in the following section. What happens when you have created a killer new game and you want to share it with your friends or send it to game companies to see whether they might publish it? Probably the most impressive and amazing feature of DarkBASIC is that it can create standalone executable files that require absolutely no run-time library!

What is a run-time library, you might ask? It is a collection of functions that are built into a programming language and must be packaged with a program for it to run. Some languages such as Visual Basic store the run-time in one or more dynamic link library DLL files that must be installed before the program will run.

Compiled DarkBASIC programs are standalone executables that do not require any run-time library because they are self-contained. The only requirement is that DirectX 7.

DarkBASIC executables can be compiled as standalone programs and distributed with all of the graphics and sounds needed by the game. Alternatively, these files can all be packaged together inside the executable file. Yes, you can compile an entire game—executable file, 3D model files, texture bitmap files, sound files, and music files—into the executable. You don't need to modify anything to load files from a disk or from inside the executable because it is done behind the scenes.

This is a great feature, especially when you don't want others to steal your game files and use them in their own games without your permission. It also includes a plethora of 3D models, textures, bitmaps, sound effects, and music that you can use freely and distribute in your own games.

What is a command? Images Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape Donate Ellipses icon An illustration of text ellipses. EMBED for wordpress. Want more? Advanced embedding details, examples, and help! Reviewer: ZengoBag - favorite favorite favorite favorite - April 27, Subject: Not Easy but worth learning I started with Dark Basic which has a pretty high learning curve.

It does take time. Joined: 18th Oct Posted: 26th Mar Edited at: 26th Mar Link. I vote for sticky! This is most definitely worthy, seeing the number of posts that are answered by this that come up daily! By the way, I think you should include a blip that says what's in the download, download size, etc. Joined: 10th Oct Posted: 27th Mar Link. New Site! Profile PM Website. Joined: 30th Jun The Universe has been erased by a mod because it was larger than x80 pixels.

Posted: 27th Mar Edited at: 27th Mar Link. Joined: 21st May Posted: 1st Apr Link. I vote sticky too. Well done Latch and Robert The Robot! Time is money.

I just ripped you off. Profile PM Email Website. Joined: 3rd Apr Posted: 3rd Apr Link. Well done, I like it too. One addition: If you're using Windows XP like me and want to make your game Vista-compatible, it's enough to copy d3drm. Posted: 11th Apr Link. It's still a good idea to place a copy of the d3drm. In fact, most if not all DirectX games that use retained mode should work in that case I'm not sure if it's ok to distribute the d3drm.