Re: [NTLK] Programming Newton Games.

From: John Charlton (johncharlton_at_mac.com)
Date: Mon Apr 18 2005 - 13:52:09 PDT


On Apr 18, 2005, at 7:32 AM, Andrew Hazelden wrote:

> Does anyone here have any experience programming sprites on the newton?

Only in NewtonScript. I'm just starting, but used something very
similar in my soon-to-be-released game "Rocket Science" which I demoed
on the weekend. I brought in a series of images, cycled between them,
moved them around, etc. Done entirely in Newtonscript it performs well
enough on a 2k Newton. I think I've got some more tweaks I can do to
optimize speed (and one day may write some C++ for it) but does OK,
even though I /think/ it does a full screen refresh on each cycle.

Not great for porting an existing game however, as it's all pure NS
code.

> How are offscreen graphics buffers handled on a MessagePad 2100?

By locking the screen, drawing and unlocking you get the same result -
flicker-freeness. You can also draw to a bitmap and slam the whole
thing on in one shot

> What type of refresh rate does the screen support?

Depends on the speed of the loop. The Programming Guide (or one of
them) suggested putting a 0.1s sleep (IIRC) in the loop to let the Newt
do other things. Despite this you can still get quite smooth movement.

> How much ram is available to store sprites and graphics?

Can't give you a number, but shouldn't be a problem for simple games.
This is a side-scroller you're doing? That might be a challenge unless
you can tile it somehow. Using C++ routines and drawing direct to
screen are probably a better bet for that.

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