Game News Frontiers Released on Steam Early Access

Hmm, I was actually surprised to hear there is a significant performance difference between python and lua. So I googled a bit, found this, http://flux242.blogspot.com/2013/05/python-vs-perl-vs-lua-speed-comparison.html

Turn out Lua is pretty good at floating point math. However, you're still looking at a 5x increase in speed going to C. (Also, you can wrap python around C functions).

 

I look forward to picking this up... in the $1 tier of an indie bundle.

 

Well somebody better make good use of that "Full mod support" and make it an RPG.

 

Try 50x and you'll be closer

Also, Lua fucking sucks

 

What would you use for an interpreter then? We know they are slower than full native, but interpreters are not meant for critical functionality.

My reason for using LuaJ rather than Jython or similar is that it's self contained and it just runs nice on Android and RoboVM.

 

Why do you need an interpreted language?

 

Data driven applications where configuration comes from external files and functionality has to be loaded at runtime. It's also helpful when codebases take minutes to hours to build and you are only doing small gameplay iterations (speed +0.5, damage +2, etc...)

Actual industry examples: case A being Hearthstone, Civilization IV or Crusader Kings 2, case B being GTA IV, any Unreal Engine game. Most modern engines have their own scripting system on top of the tinkering bits, expressing business logic is faster in higher level languages and the performance loss is acceptable because it's not on critical processes. And that's a fact.

Here's a 2014 talk about "Why C++ Is Awesome", skip to 21:55

 

Why do you need a programming language for this? A data format like JSON should suffice. As for loading external code, you can use shared objects

Counter-example, KSP is written in C# and modded in C#. the Quake games are written in C++ and modded in C++, etc

If you've written a game in C++ in a sane way, you already have a high-level language, namely the "DSL" in your C++ code

 

This looks very good, but at the end of the day he still needs to make a game.

What interests me is that is the idea of a first person survival game in a rpg setting (I always wanted such a game), as a pure rpg it does not sound that interesting to me.

 

I made my point, it went woosh, I won't waste more time on a C sperg. Reread my post to a counter for each of your rebuttals.

 

Having to install a multiplatform toolchain to cross-compile a shared object defeats the purpose of fast and easy modding. C++ is infamous for unfriendly not so compatible tooling, slow due to optimizations, leaks are common and errors are fatal. A sandboxed interpreter is safer and faster to iterate.

C# allows runtime compilation of itself, C# can be "scripted". Quake 1 (c.a. 1932) is an old, bad example. It never had the community other easier games had. I wouldn't blame it on C++ but it didn't help either. Most engines, again, run their own DSL on top of them for "designer" stuff. At this point is common practice.

C++ is a high level language, also known for needing a lot of cruft to express anything due to the memory management stuff. You may be the best programmer in the whole world and write perfect code, but the point here is that you can never ever ever spin stuff faster than in languages like Python, Golang or Lua. You can spin 1000 concurrent, multi threaded, safe, network calls + deserialization in less than 10 lines.

 

Quake 1 actually had its own QuakeC interpreted scripting language that handled the game logic. The Quake engine itself is of course written in highly optimized C.

 

I didn't know that. Thanks!

 

Let's be real. Someone who can't figure out how to install mingw or whatever won't be contributing in any meaningful way anyway

That's nonsense. Lua et al are so loose it's pretty much impossible for the programmer or tools to reason about what's going on. A C/C++ compiler will catch tons of errors at compile time that would just bomb Lua at runtime.

I don't know what "errors are fatal" means. Do you think you can't do error checking in C++? Does lua have magical hampsters running in the background that fill your nil objects with sensible values?

You got me. That'll be really useful when I need when I need to make a web server in my BG2 mod

 

That's my fault for trying to reason with a sperg. Stay in your small box.

 

Such an exciting debate.

 

Nonsense, all of it! Use LuaJIT and you get as close to C speed as possible. Most bigger titles that use Lua most likely actually use LuaJIT. I don't see a reason not to.
What it does is basically compile Lua code (at runtime, of course) instead of interpreting it. Which is much, much faster.

The only real downside of Lua (besides a certain uglyness) is that it lacks tools (like networking, OS functionality support, etc.), which have to be "plugged in" first. Which is painful to do when you embed Lua (calling Lua code from a C/C++ application, which is what most games that use Lua do).

Programming is serious business!

 

~ pakoito.tumblr.com

 

LTSL for the win.