Ren'Py 6.8.1 Released

[jack_norton]

I was browsing pygame site and had a question. I am correct to assume that RenPy uses Pygame? and Pygame SDL? and that SDL has openGL/DX ports?
If all the above are correct, shouldn't be easy to have Renpy use DX or OpenGL ?
Of course not (otherwise you would have already done that), but I don't understand where is the problem exactly

[delta]

SDL is just a middleware layer. You can build DX or OpenGL (or software rendering) applications on top of it, but the graphics rendering is not a part of SDL. It has bindings to all of them though, so it wouldn't be that hard, but it wont happen because:

* It would still require a core rewrite of Ren'Py's rendering engine
* DX is Windows-only, so it'll never make it into a main Ren'Py distribution
* OpenGL is blocked by a bunch of people in here (including you) because it doesn't run properly on 10+ year old computers
* I'm not willing to do it on my own because it's basically a fork that forces me to continually backport any changes to Ren'Py, effectively cutting me off from Ren'Py updates.

[jack_norton]

Ahhh I understand, ok now the situation is clear, thanks for the explanation
BTW OpenGL wasn't really blocked by "me", but more by microsoft since running GL programs under Vista is really a nightmare (with default videodrivers). Was more a commercial choice/motivation, rather than "I hate GL".
The best situation would be to have DX on windows, and GL on mac (and I suppose linux too).
But I can understand if that's a huge amount of work, and your reasons are very clear. To be honest, the only slowdowns I notice are on 1024x768 games with the Macmini (single core 1.2Ghz) so probably with newer/more powerful systems it should play even better.

[PyTom]

Right now, Ren'Py uses pygame. Pygame uses SDL, in its 2D mode. SDL also supports an OpenGL mode, which is different from its 2d mode, and hence not used by Pygame or Ren'Py. As best as I can tell, SDL doesn't support directx in any meaningful way*. This will hopefully change when SDL 1.3 is released.

I'm currently less interested in OpenGL/DirectX due to the support burdens they will inevitably generate. I'm less concerned about older computers, and more concerned about newer computers with misconfigured drivers. I am currently rewriting the rendering code so that in the future, new modes of operation will be easier to support. (This is what's making 6.9 take a long time.)

* It does have some support for acceleration using dx5, but that is broken enough that I disable it.

[EggsBenedict]

I have a question!

I've started testing my project with a small group of people and one of the Windows users has found that alt-tabbing out and back into the game while playing in fullscreen mode is... well, broken (see attachment, I added the mosaic to protect the tester's privacy). This isn't an issue in the Mac or Linux builds because the window-switching shortcuts are disabled while in fullscreen mode.

Would you agree this is a bug? Or should I be working out how to disable the Alt key while in fullscreen mode?

[jack_norton]

That's strange, alt-tab from fullscreen works fine here... might be some problem of your videocard.

[EggsBenedict]

Hmmm. It might be a problem specific to Radeon cards, since my tester has a Mobility Radeon 7500 and I managed to replicate the problem in a VM on my Mac (which has a Radeon X1600 in it).

Edit: Actually I realised that VMWare creates its own video card... so might it have to do with the fact that my game is widescreen?

[IceD]

Propably, yes. I'm not sure, but renpy seems to utilise both 16:9 and standard 4:3 resolutions, but switching into fullscreen on 16:9 resolutions at 4:3 monitors and the other way around can create various problems. I'll bet if the game video setting would use proper resolution on proper monitors, fullscreen would work properly.

also, try to stay up-to-date with newest video drivers. Older ones are bound to create various errors, especially when they're outdated comparing to other updated drivers. Some cards might also cause problems.

[jack_norton]

As best as I can tell, SDL doesn't support directx in any meaningful way*. This will hopefully change when SDL 1.3 is released.

I'm currently less interested in OpenGL/DirectX due to the support burdens they will inevitably generate.

I checked for some info on SDL 1.3 and apparently they'll add Direct3D support at last
Though as I said for normal VN / dating sim or in general 2d games the current renpy renderer is great already. I also looked at pyOgre, a python port of the popular 3d renderer Ogre3d and is quite impressive! However, don't think anyone here is planning to do 3d visual novels

[IceD]

Nope, they aren't, at least if you won't count cross-games, like Illusion Soft's SchoolMate , but there's a really new interesting japanese VN title by Overflow, coming up in April called Cross Days. As creators say, this game will push towards new standards. The game will run in relatively higher resolution (1024x768 with both 4:3 and 16:9 mode support), but the most interesting fact is it will use 3d graphics cards with full anti-aliasing support and it's already known the game will mix traditional 2d art with 3d animation. The bad thing is, the game will have quite big hardware requirements (at least 2ghz multicore processor is reccomended, with at least 1GB of memory and 64mb graphics card). Anyway, it seems that times were VN's could run on almost any specs are slowly going towards the end...

There's a demo released for download on their official site. Have to check it out and see what's all the glittering and sparkling about

Small update:
Yeah, I've played this and it looks quite normally, if you can say something about this really short preview (I'd say it's rather a benchmark), and it's unable to say anything particular about it. It seems that the game will be closer to an interactive DVD rather than standard VN. But I have to admit that graphics look preety nice.