Original Carrom Game built by illusionist

[illusionist]

Anyone interested in carrom game?
check out this link.

It ran well on windowsXP,did not test on other windows.
If it runs slow on your pc,may be you need latest gfx drivers.

[quantum]

Hi illusionist,

It's good to see you again. And you know what, I thought it was such a great news that you built a game on your own. So I split your post into a new topic.

Now I have downloaded the game. It seems like a decent try. Few suggestions:

a. I do heavy graphics works and I have a fairly powerful machine. The rendering is very slow, even with 1 gig ram and 64 meg graphics card! I don't know what you can do to run things smoother. But you will have to. And looks like you did not use the graphics card's power at al. Used dos mode. To be truthful, I could not even make my first strike, because things were so slow.

and

b. I could not figure out how to play it. You know, the keys to use should come in natuarally. But they did not. The simple act of quiting the game and reverting to windows took me some effort. You have to make it clearer on how to play the game in How to Play section. And make common tasks easier.

That's all for now. I hope you keep your efforts up on building games and get better on it every day. Wish you all the lucks.
_________________

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[dude]

You really built a game! wow. I will download and try it, once I get home.

[illusionist]

hello Quantumcloud,
thanks for spliting the post in a new topic.I thought it would be good to post it in the previous topic as a follow-up of that topic,but i now i find it better to be placed in a new topic.

Now, about running the game slowly.I got some similar problem in some pcs.I used opengl API to implement the 3d invironment and the reasons behind a ogl program slowing down may be the following(taken from opengl.org):

Quote:

Currently, OpenGL doesn't contain a switch to enable or disable hardware acceleration. Some vendors might provide this capability with an environment variable or software switch. If you install your graphics card, but don't see hardware accelerated rendering check for the following: 1.Did you install the device driver / OpenGL Installable Client Driver (ICD)? (How do I do that?) 2.Is your desktop in a supported color depth? (Usually 16- and 32-bit color are accelerated. See your device vendor for details.) 3.Did your application select an accelerated pixel format?

Since I selected an accelerated pixel format I think the your problem with slowing down the game may be with the other two.Before installing graphics card I found a FPS (frame per second) of 8 with 32 mb graphics card ,256 RAM and 1 ghz processor where after installing grafphics cards I found the FPS 59 to 61.So ,I think you may try the game again after installing graphics drivers.If it doesn't run faster, may be your graphics card doesn't support opengl or you need the latest drivers for your graphics card, because now-a-days almost all graphics card support opengl.

About figuring out how to play.First I thought I would use the mouse for shooting, but I found it easier to use the keyboard and it's only few keys that you need to play a game(arrow keys,'a','d' and enter keys). I think if anyone has gone through the 'how to play' part and can utilize all the keys assigned may play with ease.

Quote:

The simple act of quiting the game and reverting to windows took me some effort.

I think when the games starts to run in normal speed, only a press of escape key will make it easier.

Thanks again for your opinion QC.You have been really helpful from my very first day in the forum.

If anyone has been able to play a game, please tell me what FPS you are getting and if the sounds are working.You can find the FPS on the lower right part of the screen while holding the CAPS LOCK.

Hey dude,
thanks for your concern.Hope you will be able to enjoy the game.

You will need winrar 3.42 to extract the files.

[illusionist]

hello quantuncloud,
Since you were concerned about whether I was hardware acceleration or not I decided to change the code so that it can detect whether it is using hardware acceleration or not. If it does not find the installable client drivers (ICD) it will show a message like "hardware acceleration not possible".Otherwise it will run normal with hardware acceleration.

You will have to copythis file in the game directory.

[quantum]

Well, of course, I have the proper graphics driver installed. As I said I do heavy graphics work and I could'nt do without it. My working screen resolution is 1280 by 960. The graphics card installed is Nvidia GEForce 2, 64 mb, with 1 gb of ram and 2.4 ghz intel cpu. Even without the graphics card, it should run quite okay. I don't see a option though in the graphics card property on open gl. But the hardware acceleration is set to Full.

I mean to say that the How to Play should be written in a clearer format. May be you can play with the language and highlight the Keys to use and their functions.

I cannot download your new file by the way. The link is not working.

And btw, I am quantum. Not quantumcloud. Quantumcloud is more than just me.
_________________

Dust fills my eyes / Clouds roll by / and I roll with them / Centuries cry / Orders fly / and I fall again
Afford best design, implement best solution. Outsource your web design.

[illusionist]

i talked about this problem in several opengl forums and with some opengl experties. All of them said to me the same thing.Your drivers are not installed properly or it is directing to the MS drivers.Now, don't get me wrong.I know your graphics drivers are installed properly as you said but I think you should try this thing:

1.Try installing the graphics drivers that came from the manufacturer of the graphics card (may be found in the CD that came with the graphics card), not the one provided by microsoft .

2.Even if it does not solve the problem, this may mean that the drivers provided by the manufaturer may be older, try to retrieve the latest drivers from the manufacturer's Web page.You can also search for glSetup
which is said to detect a user's 3D graphics hardware and install the correct device drivers.

3.Even if does not solve the problem, your card may not support openGL.(Yours graphics card support that). Here is a list of cards that support ARB_multitexture. Notice it's pretty much all of them.

If these do not solve the problem may be I should give up my try with openGL and start again with directX.

I don't find any wrong with the link.It's working properly.ANd thanks for reminding the name.Actually I was in hurry,so didn't notice it.

[quantum]

Ok. I will try to download the latest driver(if there is any) and see if that helps. Right now I have installed the one that came with the manufacturer CD. Is it running alright in your PC?

I got the link working. Actually you have to do right click and save as instead of directly clicking the link.
_________________

Dust fills my eyes / Clouds roll by / and I roll with them / Centuries cry / Orders fly / and I fall again
Afford best design, implement best solution. Outsource your web design.

[dude]

Hi illusionist,

I downloaded and tried your game. When I try to play it, it says hardware acceleration is not possible! How can I play it?

[quantum]

yeah, I have the same problem here illusioninst.
_________________

Dust fills my eyes / Clouds roll by / and I roll with them / Centuries cry / Orders fly / and I fall again
Afford best design, implement best solution. Outsource your web design.

[illusionist]

hello dude,
Although you can still enter the game , but in that case the game will be very slow(same problem faced by quantum) since it says hardware acceleration not possible. Try installing graphics drivers in the CD that came with your graphics card ,rebooting your pc and then restarting the game again.For details you can have a look at my previous post.

hello quantum
You said you will try downloading latest drivers.Did you?If not chek this link out : http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp
And surely the game is running alright in my pc and also in some other pcs.

[quantum]

Well, I have to wait little more till I get back to my high speed connection. The file was 10mb. It would be impossible to download from my current connection. I will let you know soon enough.
_________________

Dust fills my eyes / Clouds roll by / and I roll with them / Centuries cry / Orders fly / and I fall again
Afford best design, implement best solution. Outsource your web design.


Last edited by quantum on Thu Sep 30, 04 11:30 am; edited 1 time in total

[dude]

Ok, I played the game. But it was slow. I think, because of that hardware acceleration thing. My FPS shows only 15. I also think, a mouse based game would be better than keyboard. I still congratulate you. It must be hard and time consuming to program something like this alone.

[illusionist]

it is nice to know that you played the game.If the FPS was around 50 you might have played it better. May be if you can acquire latest drivers from the website, FPS may get around that(assuming that you have some moderate processor,ram etc). Anyway, thanks for having the patience and for the suggestions.