| |
|
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
| |
What's News in the PlayBasic world ? - Find out here.
|
PlayBasic V1.64M Retail Upgrade Released
|
|
By: Kevin Picone Added: December 2nd, 2010
|
|
Category: All,Retail,Upgrade
|
PlayBasic V1.64M _Retail Upgrade_ is Now Available (1st, Dec, 2010)
This upgrade is perhaps one of the largest we've ever attempted, spanning some seven months of development time, and addressing virtually everything in the core command sets from DEBUGGER, FONTS, SHAPES, SPRITES through to MAPS. There's way too much to pick through now, so I highly recommend looking through the V1.64M WIP gallery for some insight in what new additions are hidden away in this release.
Don't own the retail version yet ? - Why not download the FREE learning edition of PlayBasicand dive in.
Work In Progress Gallery
Visit the PlayBasic V1.64m Work In Progress Gallery for bigger pictures / movies, code examples .
Download Upgrade
Download PlayBasic V1.64M Upgrade
|
|
|
|
PlayBasic V1.64M Entering Final Beta Testing
|
|
By: Kevin Picone Added: November 25th, 2010
|
|
Category: All,Upgrade,Beta Testing
|
PlayBasic V1.64M Entering Final Beta Testing
After six months work, upgrade V1.64M has entered the final stages of development and testing. In fact, the current version (if all goes well) will become the release version. Upgrade V1.64M has a lot of global changes from current V1.64L revision, covering all of the core commands sets, such as Fonts, Maps , Shapes, Sprites, debugger, optimizations and of course bug fixes. Therefore, if you've been living in cave most of the year or just holding off the urge to get involved, now is the time! - It's really important registered users test their programs with the current build, so we work out any final gremlins before release. To do so, head over to the PlayBasic Forums and download the latest beta (38 at the time of writing)
For those not following the work in progress blog on the forums, the following snippets (from that thread) should help get you up to speed. For more detail (code snippets/ bigger pictures), read the entire thread on the forums.
Work In Progress Gallery
Visit the PlayBasic V1.64m Work In Progress Gallery for bigger pictures / movies, code examples and of course downloads.
|
|
|
|
|
PlayBasic V1.64L Upgrade Released
|
|
By: Kevin Picone Added: April 26th, 2010
|
|
Category: All,Upgrade,Retail
|
This release updates any of the PlayBasic V1.63w2 to PB V1.64k2 retail versions up to the current retail release version of PlayBasic V1.64L . If your version is older than PB1.63W, then you'll need to install patch PB1.63w2 prior to this one ! (if you haven't already)
The PlayBasic V1.64L package includes updates of PB Compiler, Release / Debug Runtimes, SLIBS, DOCS & IDE V1.17b.
This upgrade features a number of minor and major changes to most of the core parts of the package. For the compiler/runtimes there's the regular minor bug fixes, but really major changes can be found in the documentation. Namely with the addition of sub-category support, plus a number of the default libraries have been added to the main documentation. Many of these libraries have also had some light touch up's also in process. The main one would be the FrameSheetAnims library, which is now a default library.
What's not in this package ? - Well, Threading Support isn't available in this version of the package..
Download Upgrade
Download PB1.64L Retail Upgrade (requires log in)
|
|
|
|
|
PlayBasicFX V1.76 Upgrade Released
|
|
By: Kevin Picone Added: February 17th, 2010
|
|
Category: All,Upgrade,Retail
|
PlayBasicFX V1.76 _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 V1.76
This is this next step in the long migration of a PB project into the PBFX world. Ironically, while PBFX is the successor of PB, it's slowly got behind in terms of various compiler features added to V1.64 editions of PB. So this edition implements all of those features such as, optional parameters, passing UDT types in/outs of functions/spub, returning arrays from functions, loads of new math short operators such as (++, --, +=, -=, *=,/=, &=,~=, |=) , dynamic function calling (CallFunction) and various others tidbits..
Not familiar with PlayBasicFX ?, well in short, it's the next generation edition of PlayBasic, that we've been developing in parallel with the existing editions. The main 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 V1.76, 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 V1.76 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 in 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 programs and know that PlayBasicFX will keep up with you!
Other differences found in PlayBasicFX 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.
 - -
 - -
 - -
 - -
 - -
 -
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: Download Learning Edition
Download
See Full Announcement 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.
Visit Forum
|
|
|
|
|
PlayBasic V1.64k2 Upgrade Released
|
|
By: Kevin Picone Added: January 2nd, 2010
|
|
Category: All,Upgrade,Retail
|
This release updates any of the PlayBasic V1.63w2 through to PB V1.64j2 retail upgrades, to the current retail release version of PlayBasic V1.64k. If your version is older than PB1.63W, then you'll need to install patch PB1.63w2 prior to this one ! (if you haven't already)
The PB1.64k package includes updates of PB Compiler, Release / Debug Runtimes, SLIBS, DOCS & IDE V1.17.
This upgrade is mainly to correct some issues detected in previous release of V1.64k after release. These issues mostly concern internal and user defined function parameters. Correcting issues with optional parameters and with long hand declarations.
The only new functionality (that comes to mind) would be VSYNC support in windowed modes. It's important to understand that you can't control the ends users displays refresh rate. So therefore you shouldn't assume that everybody playing your game has their windows desktop refresh set to the same as yours. So if your system has a refresh rate of 60 say, and your friends system has a refresh of 75. Then your game will run faster on your friends system than yours. Mind you, the same applies in full screen exclusives modes also ! So Vsync should be used to smooth out display refresh, not as a speed limiter!
To learn more about new compiler features added in PlayBasic V1.64K, check out the V1.64 WIP thread, which includes some examples and some theory stuff about the new features found in this upgrade.
Download Upgrade
Download PB1.64k Revision #2 Retail Upgrade (requires forum log in)
|
|
|
|
|
PlayBasic V1.64k Upgrade Released
|
|
By: Kevin Picone Added: December 15th, 2009
|
|
Category: All,Upgrade,Retail
|
This release updates any of the PlayBasic V1.63w2 through to PB V1.64j2 retail upgrades, to the current retail release version of PlayBasic V1.64k. If your version is older than PB1.63W, then you'll need to install patch PB1.63w2 prior to this one ! (if you haven't already)
The PB1.64k package includes updates of PB Compiler, Release / Debug Runtimes, SLIBS, DOCS & IDE V1.17. This upgrade focuses upon adding a number of new flexibilities to the core language, ranging from expansions to User Defined Types, Seven new Math operators, Optional Parameters Support in not only built in functions but users defined functions, Dynamic Function Calling (Call a function by name at runtime), Limited Array operators, Dynamic Array Creation (return arrays from functions) as well as Passing/Returning Individual Types from Functions/Psubs. All in All, there's a lot of new toys for you play with !
To learn more about the titty gritty of these changes check out the V1.64 WIP thread, which includes some examples and some theory stuff about this upgrade.
Download Upgrade
Download PB1.64k Retail Upgrade (requires forum log in)
|
|
|
|
|
PlayBasic V1.64k In Final Testing
|
|
By: Kevin Picone Added: December 8th, 2009
|
|
Category: All,Upgrade,Beta Testing
|
We've been working very hard on the next retail upgrade of PlayBasic, which will be V1.64k - This edition focuses upon adding a number of new flexibilities to the core language, ranging from expansions to User Defined Types, Seven new Math operators, Optional Parameters Support in not only built in functions but users defined functions, Dynamic Function Calling (Call a function by name at runtime), Limited Array operators, Dynamic Array Creation (return arrays from functions) as well as Passing/Returning Individual Types from Functions/Psubs. All in All, there's a lot of new toys for you play with !
Prior to starting work on V1.64K, we'd planned upon including not only a range of new language features, but more expansions to the graphics engine also. However, given the scope of this work. We've decided to split the upgrade into two halves, V1.64k will be the language changes, while V1.64L will be mostly graphical changes. This enables us to ensure the functionality of the product out there in the real world. (You know, running user code  ).
In terms of release dates, my best estimate at this point, is that we'll see a release of PlayBasic V1.64 sometime within the next week.
Head over to our PlayBasic forums to check the PlayBasic V1.64k Work In Progress thread out, for more nitty gritty!. There's still lots more changes to come !
|
|
|
|
|
New Features Coming to PlayBasic V1.64k
|
|
By: Kevin Picone Added: November 2nd, 2009
|
|
Category: All,Upgrade,Learning Edition
|
PlayBasic is a progressive product, as such, we're always striving to improve its functionally for our users, from the power of the command sets and core language, through to the products help and example packs. Which is no exception in the next scheduled upgrade.
So far development has only been in progress for a couple of weeks, mainly focusing upon compiler and runtime additions to the package. In terms of the compiler/syntax, the latest editions involved various C styled short cut operators such as the ++, --, +=, -=, *= , /=, various automatic casting operators and the long awaited ability to return user defined types from functions. All of which will make writing your games easier. These math operators in particular are a great way short cut long math expressions into more compact, and in some cases, faster code.
Other changes thus far have been to the runtime technology that PlayBasic used to execute your programs. These changes revolve around how the PlayBasic runtime stack and pointer operations work. While there not exciting features, such improvements allow the runtime to better execute your programs. So often small changes in the low level technology, can enable our programs to perform more calculations, which ultimately means our games can run a faster.
Beyond the compiler/runtime additions, we'll be adding more features to graphics commands, updating the help and of course addressing any bugs.
Head over to our PlayBasic forums to check the PlayBasic V1.64k Work In Progress thread out, for more nitty gritty!. There's still lots more changes to come !
|
|
|
|
Viewing Page [5] of [6]
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
