Time to optimise

lethe on 2009/05/03 00:36 of Wibble

Well, I've uploaded my final version, and it is playable right through to completion, but it requires obscene compute resources for such a puny game - I'm afraid you will need a good processor to play this - my 2Ghz Athlon XP 64 on 64 bit Ubuntu chugs along at 12-15 fps depending on what is happening. (Its processor limited - rendering consumes very little time. Its not even the physics that is doing it - its the dam AI. Once this is over I'll increase the speed by an order of magnitude once I have the time to profile it properly. You just shouldn't call that many trig functions in Python. Be warned that if you do have a low frame rate the physics can explode...) Tomorrow I'll create a 'lite' version though - I presume its within the rules to simply adjust a few integers so there are less protesters and less policemen, so people can run it on lower end hardware. I won't mark those versions as final anyway and let the judges decide. My game requires Panda 3D as its only library to run (And Python of course, unless your on Windows, in which case Panda includes its own copy of Python.) - you can get it from panda3d.org. Its simple enough to install and supports Windows, Linux (32 bit and 64 bit, many distros.) as well as Mac OS support. Just note that Mac support is relatively recent and still has some issues. I have however created a Windows installer (The kettling-0.1.exe file) - that should just install and run, regardless of what is on your computer, with its own copy of Panda etc. I don't have time now but tomorrow I'll see if I can create a 32 bit Linux package as well - I think pandas packaging system does both .deb's and .rpms. (It doesn't work with 64 bit Linux or Mac OS though, so for them you will need to install Panda.) For the game itself I think its kinda fun - it initially seems simple, but turns out to be frustratingly tricky, at least when not in easy mode. A house mate also said he found it addictive, which was satisfying:-) A lot of stuff got dropped in the end, most notably detailed stats on completion and the bribing of politicians. (Both exist in part in code, but are lacking gui more than anything else.)