ImageIO, Timers, Transparency and a Rant

Question

Hi all,
<BEGIN RANT>
After years of writing games and programming next-gen consoles, I foolishly decided to write a few online java games. Like many, I chose Java because it is very similar to c++ and accessible cross-platform on web pages by the masses with no extra downloads required (btw, I'm not using j3d for this reason). Instead I've found it to be nothing but a burden.
Today's gripes are below. If I sound like I'm having a rant, well, adter fighting it all this week, I am!. Any help/suggestions/discussions are most appreciated. I'm currently using j2sdk 1.4.1_02.
1) why can't I enable hardware accleration (currently transparency sucks on the framerate) without requiring permissions? What exactly am I going to do with it to make it a security risk?
2) Why doesn't Java (without j3d or any other extensions) support the high-resolution timer? Such a basic issue that has been plaguing these forums for years. It seems i can't even do a work around as using JNI requires permissions and an external module on the users machine so I can't do this from an APPLET without signing and installing something. Sure, I could just about use 15ms on w2k and make win98 users suffer 20fps with the 50ms res timer. I tried (and succeeded) using my own timers but that means I can't sleep (as sleep>0 will sleep for at least the timer resolution) so my cpu usage is on 99%. And it destroyed my win98 machine :-)
3) Has anyone had problems with ImageIO.read in an applet? I find that occasionally when reading an image from my web server, it reads it twice (I guess it found an error and re-requests it) and corrupts the image. At first I thought it was my php corrupting the image, but it does it on direct accesses as well. Toolkit.createImage does not seem to have this problem (but then I have to wait for it to load (currently i construct a cursor with the image which seems to sort it) and then paste it to BufferedImage rather than the inaccessible image type returned by toolkit). Toolkit does however have the advantage that I can use extensionless image files and prevent caching though which ImageIO.read seems unable to handle (it usually loses the palette of gifs etc without the extension hint). My web server is apache 2.0.45 on Win2K btw.
These issues concern APPLETS. If i wanted to write an application, I would use C++ and OpenGL with very little extra work required for each specific platform (I'd only support PC, Mac and x86 based linux anyway). The point is that i want it embedded on a web page, and I don't want the user to have to install anything other than the Java VM.
What about the rest of you?
What are your experiences with Java? Good? Bad?
Do you guys think there is any future for it?
Does Java 1.5 have anything to offer?
IF it comes down to it, and I NEED to sign my code and INSTALL code then I will just abandon Java altogether and just stick to windoze users (It will take a fraction of the development time and be far less painful for me to use ActiveX or .net).
Oh, and if you're just going to reply and say something like "I think Java's the bestest thing ever, it's so much better and cooler than C++ and all my friends think so too. Cos my teacher says so" then don't waste my time.
If you have games experience and know what you're on about then I'd love to hear your views.
<END RANT>
Cheers
-Simon

Answer 1

Hi Paul,
Thanks for your views.
Badly because it provides the security protections it
says it does?No, I mostly appreciate the security but some things seem a little too secure. For example, I want to use hardware acceleration for my translucencies but Java won't let me....
You can always ask users to change the permissions
your applet runs under, I guess, assuming the browser
support it. But at that point, why not just write
your game in C++ and tell people to download it and
run it normally?
If you're trying to write a Quake clone in java and
distribute it as an applet...don't bother.The point is that I don't want to do this. I want ppl to have to visit the web site to play the game without having to grant permissions or install anything or agree to run signed code (not just for advertising purposes but also as some of the games will be multiplayer). This is why I'm using Java and not activeX or .net.
I am perfectly capable of writing any genre of game to be cross platform in C++ (if I use OpenGL then I only need a thin platform-specific wrapper and I just compile it for my required targets - PC, Mac, x86 Linux), and I really don't see the point in attempting it as a Java application. The games I'm currently doing for my website in Java are simple 2d games suitable as applets. The main problem I'm having is that I need to sleep to free up the cpu, but the low-res timer resolution means that I can only run at 20fps on win98 when sleeping. Yes it runs ok, but by no means as smooth as I'd like.
I think java may be used in action gaming once it's
embedded into an environment that really supports it
(e.g., as a well-supported programming environment for
PlayStation 2) (and somehow I doubt that OpenGL
bindings for java will work as a gaming environment,
although that's just a hunch), and it's fine for
non-action games.Yes it can do the job, but the fact is that Java is and always will be slower than code compiled directly for the target CPU so this means my entire audience need to have higher spec machines to run it than I'd like. I would not write anything that is too CPU intensive in Java as there are also still a lot of low spec machines out there running win98 which I (unlike most ppl on these forums) am still willing to support.
Cheers
-Si