Best way for an indie developer to get started?

[dan33]

[ppcStudios]

It sounds like a reasonable way to go. You can typically pick up an iPAQ 3635 device on Ebay in the $150 range which is an excellent device to develop on (in fact it is my primary development device). The eVC compilers are free of charge, as are all of the SDKs and emulators. You can even develop for the Smartphone if you so desire. There are several development studios that actively seek partnerships with independent developers and smaller development houses that assist in the marketing and development of promising titles, as well as covering the cost of API licensing. I wish you the best of luck in developing your title.

[dan33]

[David Horn]

[dan33]

[ppcStudios]

[mlepage]

[dan33]

[Dan East]

[dan33]

Is floating point math that slow on PPCs? A few questions about that then;

- How do 3D games that I've seen get by this?
- What sort of alternatives do I have for time based movement?

[Kzinti]

Yes, floating point is that slow.

One good and simple alternative is fixed point maths.

[Dan East]

As Thierry said, fixed point math is completely the way to go. You also want to avoid division like the plague. I also try to avoid multiplication whenever possible too.

Here's a quick example on the time based deal. Instead of using fractions of a second, just use millseconds. Further, use 1024 milliseconds per second, because precision-wise that is usually completely fine, and you can shift right by 10 instead of dividing by 1000.

So say an object is moving 500 units per second, and 20 mS has elapsed over the last frame. So the actual units to move this frame are:

(50*20)>>10 = 9 units

Dan East

[Kzinti]

I do not why everyone here says to avoid multiplications. They only take 1 cycle on ARM processors. What is wrong with multiplications?

[refractor]

[Conan]