feedback / questions r51

hey

congrats on the release !

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c2 looks and feels improved to cc in the first few tests.

useability is somehow same and i had the same tool performance overall,

except exporting took longer with for example space blaster (biggest project i tested)

edit: exporting is fast without png recompressing.

sceneeditor seemed faster.

editor overall was alittle bit faster on older pcs (only tested with small project)

c2 wouldnt open on another pc, dont remember the dialoge but i guess

it has to do with the winxp version or runtimes.

edit: tested again, showed kernel32.dll error. if i had to bet i would say a xp service pack is missing

-so what are the exact system requirements of c2 ?

(os, os updates, runtimes, drivers...)

html5 performance isnt optimal. ran some of the provided games and forum games on ff3.5, ff4 and a new ff beta - performance improved with each version

but with user statistics in mind it was not good enough for me personaly. and i had fpsdrops and soundbugs( the sbug maybe bc. of fps)

the tested hardware can run opengl q4, etqw with stable 30fps in 1280

and crysis/2 about 20-30fps in low/medium.

flash runs more stable with comparable graphics, and higher fps count or less drops with comparable gameplay for now on 5year old hardware.

in general i would prefer html5 over flash if its on par on performance, compatibility.

bug: the platform8 demo had the same bug as platformer behavior in c1

with stopping 1pixel above ground (havent checked the buglist, just mention it in case)

im interested in c2 and producing high quality games, so im with some

other devs in here who are really interested in exe, linux or mac exporters

now that the first release seems quite complete im sure this is in your minds too:

• can you give some information what you expect to be last date of the first version of the .exe exporter somehow ?

ive ran cc on several machines (the editor and the games), one of the few disadvantages i still have are the high dx9c requirements. the performance on older hardware even with outdated gfx cards is good enough.

• so can you please give some estimation on how the opengl exe exporter would run compared to cc on older hardware (for example p3 1ghz, gf1 or 2, athlon 1200 radeon 7k, 8k)

would there be any fps loss to cc games or to other opengl games that run good on such hardware (e.g. idtech3, cs, or with dx ut2003) ?

-what would be the estimated system requirements (opengl version, drivers, os ...) ?

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edit2: tested most provided games in ff, opera and chrome in the newest

versions of the browsers now. the platform example has over 50fps in chrome, the ghost laser shooter 10-20. could be a starting point for me with reducing fx and spritesize.

-how secure is my gamecontent exactly ?

//edited a few things after some hours frametests.

thanks for your time, gl hf

Hey, thanks for the feedback! Here's a few answers to some of your questions:

-so what are the exact system requirements of c2 ?

The only system requirement should be Windows XP SP2 or newer. I guess you got the error on a Windows XP SP1 machine. Perhaps you could check that and let me know? C2 uses several features only introduced in XP SP2 so it would be extremely difficult to support XP SP1 or earlier.

tml5 performance isnt optimal.

Firefox 6 (the latest), IE9 (the latest) and Chrome 14 (next one out in ~6 weeks) all have hardware accelerated rendering - so you should get very good performance with them. However, if you have an old graphics card or out of date drivers, the browser may fall back to software rendering which is slow. Make sure you have the latest graphics card drivers! In 6-12 months or so I imagine the majority of Internet users will be using a hardware accelerated browser.

can you give some information what you expect to be last date of the first version of the .exe exporter somehow ?

We honestly don't know what to say - we're stretched to the limit with finishing features in the editor and HTML5 exporter. Once that's done it will take more time to get an EXE exporter done if that's what we decide to do next. So I don't want to say anything in case anybody holds us to that!

so can you please give some estimation on how the opengl exe exporter would run compared to cc on older hardware (for example p3 1ghz, gf1 or 2, athlon 1200 radeon 7k, 8k)

would there be any fps loss to cc games or to other opengl games that run good on such hardware (e.g. idtech3, cs, or with dx ut2003) ?

An OpenGL runtime should be equally as fast as the DirectX one (it's the graphics hardware that sets performance, not the API). OpenGL is much more compatible than DirectX though. You won't need any updates at all, for example. Most computers can run OpenGL without any modification at all.

what would be the estimated system requirements (opengl version, drivers, os ...) ?

Same as C2: Windows XP SP2+ (don't know about Mac, haven't looked yet), and OpenGL 1.1 which has been pretty much universal since 1997.

how secure is my gamecontent exactly ?

r51 obfuscates javascript so it should be nearly impossible to reverse engineer a HTML5 game on the web back to its C2 project. However, due to the nature of the web, your images all have to be uploaded to the server too. Copyright law is on your side though: in most countries, you do not need to do anything to copyright your work, it is automatically copyrighted to you, so it is illegal for anyone to copy and use your images.

Hope that helps - let me know if you have any more questions!

are there any plans for images obfuscation? just asking.

are there any plans for images obfuscation? just asking.

A waste of time in my opinion. Image obfuscation would probably be a pain in the ass to implement, too. If someone wants the images THAT BADLY, they could just use printscreen.

^^

True, and then you'd have crappy copies of your art work running around.

decrypting the images would take processing power that's hard to come by, what with HTML 5 not being THAT optimized, we need all the power we can get.

Also, nothing will protect you if people want your images bad - look at the ton of mario/sonic fangames around. They can't make anything commercial with it, though, so you're pretty much safe.

Even if there was a solution to encrypt images, it probably wouldn't be be developed by Scirra.

Closest thing I can think of would be renaming all your images to random strings and updating the references in the runtime.

Closest thing I can think of would be renaming all your images to random strings and updating the references in the runtime.

I'll do this in a future build. I don't think there's much to be gained by obfuscating the images themselves. While they would only need to be de-obfuscated on startup, it could pause for several seconds while it processes everything, and like Candescence says it doesn't stop the "printscreen attack". So I think just making it a little harder to track down images should be as far as it's sensible to go.

if anything, if your sprites look reallllll cool, someone will ask "where did you get those sprites from?"

and some other person on the internet will say "oh it's from this game this game is so cash"

so free publicity in a way.

thanks for the clarifying answers !

tested the service pack requirements with 3 fresh installs:

xp no sp: entry point Encodepointer in kernel32.dll not found

xp sp1: the same error

xp sp2: working out of the box

xpsp1 was tested in a virtual machine, the others normal.

no hw acceleration activated in virtual pc.

hardware was p4 3ghz with igp.

no extra drivers installed on all 3 installs.

Service pack 2 is basically mandatory nowadays. SP3 even more so. At work I install Windows XP onto machines, I always apply those service packs otherwise users run into many problems.

as a system admin i would probably do the same.(be on the sure side of things some may call it)

but as a user i wouldnt like to install the update myself only to run

1 software more than before when everything is working like it should.

do i like to use or sell software that forces to install new hardware/software until really necessary for quality ? and no option even to start or run maybe with scaling renderquality or 1 or 2 missing extra features ?

one good example for that are imo the wc3/wow or guildwars engine. i think most people prefer it that way. so i try to keep the dependency

low in general.

guess we all agree a sp2 install maybe with a directx update is

the general minimum standard atm for most high end studios.

i read of dx10 only games, but there are more xp sp1 compatible games in development overall than games that work only with vista. even if that isnt the case i still like it more because the hardware is still there - a software only lock from xp standard install to sp3 is not my thing. same hardware same performance, software should be scaleable unless theres a good explanation.

most would rather experience a slower software/game with some gfx missing than a starting error.

of course every dev has to make her/his reasonable min. requirements.

It may be possible to back-port the OpenGL runtime (when we make it) to XP SP1 (or even no service pack at all!), but it gets increasingly difficult the further back you go. For example, C2 uses a local HTTP server to preview HTML5 games on. The HTTP server is provided by XP SP2 and later. Therefore, to support SP1 and earlier, we'd have to find an alternative HTTP server API or write one ourselves, which would cost time/money, and hold back other features we really need to do. Then, there might be 3 or 4 other features we need to repeat that process for, because they're only supported by SP2 and up. So it could be a lot of work, all for people who haven't installed a free update that was released about 7 years ago.

So writing a runtime from scratch we might be able to do it, but from the developer's perspective, it makes things more complicated and time-consuming, which is especially expensive for small businesses that don't have whole teams of programmers to throw at problems.

Doesn't Windows XP download service packs automatically? Why would people use old ones? If they are they are using old versions they're probably not gamers anyway.

There are lots of reasons people don't update software:

• they don't understand what it is,
• they don't care,
• they don't want to go through the hassle of half hour or more installs, especially if it might break something,
• they might not have bought the software through "proper channels" and are nervous about updates,
• they work at a large corporation with an IT department with an "if it ain't broke don't fix it" ethic,

etc. etc. It's definitely best for everyone to use up-to-date software - usually it's faster, better and more secure. However, not everyone is knowledgable about technology, and might not see it that way.