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[Groggy]

Hi Marek, now that you're moved and hopefully settled in. I've got a few questions and requests for you.

1. I've skimmed the specs for GL 4.0 and not even gonna pretend I'm curious about it, but is it something I'll have to deal with in the next 5yrs or so?

2. Are you finished with Ghost Toast? If so, will there be a way to get it on DVD? I like jumping from vmk to vmk, it gets boring trying to follow through em. Going to an interesting one gives me incentive to go back to the boring parts. Not to mention the 2gig download I'm not looking forward to

3. Vmk requests
In the Physics vmk's, you did a couple on space ships in 2D, would it be possible to get one on 3D? Something similiar to Wing Command, where you can even turn upside down.

A vmk series on loading/unloading areas while the game is playing, so you get the feeling of being in a large world. Basically expanding the C++ vmk on threading and adding how to use multi-core processors?

I also have an interested in adding joysticks and sound (I'm assuming sound is done in Ghost Toast, but a series on just sound would be nice).

That's about it for now.

[codeslasher]

Hi,
am not Marek, but let me see.

1. OpenGL 4 seems to require newer hardware. If you want to make use of certain features in these new cards eg ATI Radeon 5800 and above, then yes.
Also GLSL has been updated and also changes made to make writing shaders easier.
Best way to use OpenGL 3.0 and above it to know what you want your code to do and then check the capabilites and extensions and see if the card supports them.
You dont have to deal with them ever but once you start writing complex code, then you might need the features.

3. I'd also like the physics vmk to continue

4. For Joystick and Gamepad support, you will have to add code to your window class that handles messages for them. Read Windows Multimedia Joysticks and check all the links in that page. You wont get support for more all the button on an xbox controller using this method but for joysticks with fewer buttons it will work. But to get any joystick to work, look at using Direct Input. (this is not cross platform though)

Music and Sound can be added easily using OpenAL (www.openal.org). It uses a similar coding api to OpenGl so its easy to pick up.

Hope this helps.