Questions About 3D Browser Games
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My question is in reference to a game I saw today-"Eternal Earth". Site can be found here: http://www.eartheternal.com/
What my question is..is how such a rather good-looking, good-performing game can run within a browser and how the client can be so small. :o Well, it does come with an installer, but after that, the game runs within the browser.
Seems like a game like that would lag within the browser. Of course I haven't seen anyone else in-game so idk if there'll be lag with other players in the game. But I'm kind of taken back by how quality the game looks.
I mean, I would think, games like Runescape would upgrade to quality visuals like this game's visuals. I mean, with a net income of $72 million dollars annually from Runescape, I don't see why they don't upgrade. (I guess less people would be able to run it.. hm)
BUT! Are they just installing a client on the computer and the game just acts like it's in the browser? Or is it in Flash? Or? :o
If theres an installer that means it can run C++ and OpenGL or DirectX right in your browser.
Quake Live by ID software does the same thing
http://www.quakelive.com/
basically it's just a regular program running in the browser (:
There is another route to 3d in the browser though.
In java you can do opengl using JOGL. In java you can also embed a program into a webpage by making a java applet.
You can actually combine the 2 to make a java applet that uses opengl
I have an example here:
http://demofox.org/livesite/current
but, java applets are a little problematic on some machines, so it isn't 100% reliable.
Quake Live by ID software does the same thing
http://www.quakelive.com/
basically it's just a regular program running in the browser (:
There is another route to 3d in the browser though.
In java you can do opengl using JOGL. In java you can also embed a program into a webpage by making a java applet.
You can actually combine the 2 to make a java applet that uses opengl
I have an example here:
http://demofox.org/livesite/current
but, java applets are a little problematic on some machines, so it isn't 100% reliable.
I'm sure a good bit of data is kept client side to reduce load times. Guild Wars normally takes what feels like eons to load everything... the first time. When you revisit locations and start old missions, load times are nearly instantaneous. It's just like the browser's cache, only it's kept in a directory in the client's program files.
They can upgrade, and they did... to an extent.
You have to remember a web browser is really just a specialized renderer that takes instructions in XHTML/CSS and outputs regions of graphical elements. Playing a game where entire vertex buffers, textures and the like are delivered from servers in real time would just suck, so you are given resources when needed between explorable areas or key game points.
You can have applications run in a browser, but the hard disk would have to come in somewhere, as you may have some nice hardware to take advantage of. I would assume the client has to harbor a good deal of resources. If not resources, data delivered from the game servers would probably be commands aimed at the engine to keep you up to date with going-ons in the world.
Quote:
Seems like a game like that would lag within the browser....
<snip>
I would think, games like Runescape would upgrade to quality visuals like this game's visuals. I mean, with a net income of $72 million dollars annually from Runescape, I don't see why they don't upgrade. (I guess less people would be able to run it.. hm)
They can upgrade, and they did... to an extent.
You have to remember a web browser is really just a specialized renderer that takes instructions in XHTML/CSS and outputs regions of graphical elements. Playing a game where entire vertex buffers, textures and the like are delivered from servers in real time would just suck, so you are given resources when needed between explorable areas or key game points.
You can have applications run in a browser, but the hard disk would have to come in somewhere, as you may have some nice hardware to take advantage of. I would assume the client has to harbor a good deal of resources. If not resources, data delivered from the game servers would probably be commands aimed at the engine to keep you up to date with going-ons in the world.
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