Yep thats right, now a paying member.
Well... to tell a little bit about myself...
I'm currently enrolled at Berklee College of Music, and I'm interested in programming. I've been working on an isometric strategy battle game, programmed in Java. It currently uses the Java2D API, but I believe that it is quickly showing me that I need to use OpenGL to get the FPS up.

I used to run just Linux and Windows, however I am now a happy owner of a 15" PowerBook G4. I have to admit not having to worry about viruses and spyware is absolutley mind boggling. And the simple concept that you plug something in and it works, actually works! This is quite contrary to the experiences that I've had with XP.

Now, you don't have to worry, I'm not some mac addict that will cram the 'wIndoZe Suks' and 'Macs Rule!1!!!1!' stuff down your throat, but I must say that I was trully impressed with the simple fact that everything works how it is supposed to.

Now, that being said I actually no longer have access to PC :( So instead I am forced into using VPC, which actually does a good job of telling me whether or not something compiled right ;) but pretty much gives me no clue on the speed that something should be running...

I could be programming in C++ or C, but I went with Java for the cross platformness of it. You may all hate me for it, I don't blame you. Now, as far as speed goes, I do see that C is a bunch faster, but I don't need REALLY fast speeds, just enough to get me by. OpenGL on Java actually does a pretty dang decent job in getting FPS. Java2D however, can barely repaint the screen black at 300fps, let alone draw images faster then 100... combine this with music playing, and you get 50fps on good systems.

One thing that I just found out about my game(by the way is called Java Tactics) is that some systems play it well and others don't. I have a couple of different concepts about why that is:

* Some systems are not hardware accelerating Java
* Some of the older systems are using windows with a bad Timer
* My programming stinks

Now I think that third isn't at fault (laugh go ahead) because I can get between 150 and 333 fps on my system. So its just a setting or problem with windows somewhere that is crapping out my code.

I would like to fix this within Java2D so that I don't have to learn OpenGL, but it would be a good experience for me to do so.
Anyway, I've got school to go to....