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What's News in the PlayBasic world ? - Find out here.
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PlayBasicFX V1.74 _Retail Upgrade_ Released
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By: Kevin Picone Added: December 2nd, 2008
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Category: All,Upgrade,Retail
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PlayBasicFX V1.74 _Retail Upgrade_ Released
This release upgrades (transforms) the existing PB1.63m to PB1.64c retail releases or the PBFX1.7x releases (the ones above) into the current WIP version of PlayBasicFX V1.74
The main focus of this release, is the introduction of the VM2 runtime behind the scenes. PlayBasicFX V1.74 is a transitional release of sorts. As It still uses the VM1 launcher and some of the old VM1 opcodes though, but they're only hanging by a thread in that regard. The majority of your programs will be running 80->100% in the new VM2 execution unit. So you'll get a good helping of free processing power.
Not familiar with PlayBasicFX ?, well in short it's the next generation edition of the PlayBasic, that we've been developing this in parallel with the existing editions. The main obvious changes in the product are the move from the DirectDraw engine (found in PlayBasic V1.64 and bellow editions) to the Direct3D engine. Moreover, previous releases of PBFX package, we're running upon virtually the same runtime (VM1) as standard PlayBasic. So they had much the same calculation performance and the same linguistic limitations. With release V1.74, this is no longer the case. PBFX editions are now exclusively using the new VM2 runtime technology. Confused ? - PlayBasicFX is the big brother of PlayBasic.
So what can PBFX's VM2 do for me ? - Well VM2 brings a world a new possibilities to your PlayBasicFX applications, from the users perspective it's primarily all about speed at this point. Even though, the edition in V1.74 isn't the final, conservatively speaking VM2 is anywhere from 2 to 5 times the real time performance of the Vm1 runtime. To put this perspective, this means VM2 yields very similar & better (in some cases) performance than even some natively compiled basics. Which means you can write more complex involving programs and know that PlayBasicFX will keep up with you!
Other differences found in PlayBasicFX V1.74 come in the form of Direct 3D support. What does mean ? - Well, it means that PlayBasicFX can now take advantage of the 3D hardware acceleration found in your computers video card. Which can be used for not only 2D effects, but creating 3D scenes as well. The new graphics engine includes things like a sprite meshes (2d/3d) rotation, particle engine, perspective projection (view scenes as 2D or 3D), new map engine, more collision methods etc etc. It should noted though, that while FX can do 3D, it isn't the focus of FX. But it's there for you get your hands dirty. Here's a few screen shots to show what it's capable of.
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Have fun !
For more information about PlayBasic, please visit the PlayBasic home page and download the FREE (TIME UNLIMITED) LEARNING EDITION and dive in.
Url: www.PlayBasic.com
Download
See Full Annoucement For Download
How Do I Upgrade ?
Registered PlayBasic owner ? - Want to upgrade to PlayBasicFX for FREE? All PlayBasicFX upgrades are only available through the PlayBasic maintenance forum. To access these, and all manner of the other PlayBasic related goodies, you'll need to sign up and log into the UnderwareDesign Forums.
How To Register
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