I've recently started dabbling in pygame by recreating my OMG entry (Chemical Bonds) in Python and I'm planning on doing a couple other projects as well. Python is certainly an interesting langauge and it certainly feels like I'm writing less code than I would in C++. However, I don't hear much about people using it around here, except for maybe Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble! So I guess what I'm looking for is people's experiences with Python and pygame and selling games written in it -- one of the things I haven't gotten around to figuring out yet is whether or not I can include a donation reminder that can be deactivated with a registration code.

I've used it, but it was too slow in windowed mode for my taste. Also, its rotation scheme is idiotic - image quality degrades as you rotate unless you first reset rotation.

PyGame is just SDL, so you can use OpenGL perfectly well. Certainly I wouldn't use SDL's 2D blitting for anything much.

The problem with OpenGL under pygame is you lose some cross-platform support. Lots of PCs don't have OpenGL installed. This is a mac-centric board, so I don't think most here will worry about it, but for commercial products, it's worth knowing.

Doesn't OpenGL 1.2 ship will all Windows?

And most people under linux have OGL (mesa?) installed I'd say (in my ignorant opinion).

Here's the answer, I think. It's from Mark Salloway's XP resource center.

Quote:OpenGL for games in Windows XP

For OpenGL hardware accelerated games to work correctly your video cards driver must include OpenGL support in addition to having a video card that supports OpenGL instructions. The great majority of cards support OpenGL, some integrated video chipsets and older video cards (made before 1998) may not or do but at very slow speeds.

The video drivers on the Windows XP CD-ROM (That are installed by default) do not support any form of hardware accelerated OpenGL, so even if your card does, games will fail to run until you install an updated driver from your video cards manufacturer. What would happen in this case would be the game might spot the software mode OpenGL renderer that ships as part of Windows (for certain Screensavers, not suitable to run hardware accelerated OpenGL) and attempt to use it which would bring up the opengl sub system load failures type errors which often appear on the Windows XP Games newsgroup.

So, while Windows supports OpenGL, the video driver or card may not, and its up to our customers to make it work. Fun, eh?

That's for XP. Many, many people are still using 98, or worse. I think Vista may be okay, though. Not sure. (Nobody's sure about Vista any more. :-)

It requires drivers from the IHV, but I've not found a PC which has the appropriate Direct3D drivers but not the appropriate GL drivers yet. Not that I've had *that* much to do with Windows

Windows users are so used to installing drivers for new hardware, of course they'll just run the driver installer that came with their video card, and get the GL drivers.

In any case, PyGame is SDL, so you don't get the option of Direct3D. That leaves OpenGL or nothing at all

Musenik Wrote:Not sure. (Nobody's sure about Vista any more. :-)

FYI, my OpenGL apps worked out of the box on Vista.

http://www.opengl.org/pipeline/article/vol003_9/

I make products for the mainstream. The average soccer mom is not adept at installing drivers. If you're targeting gamers more elite, then you'll do well to use OpenGL. I envy you. I would love to realize the performance enhancement OpenGL provides in pygame.

Your average mom has perfectly good GL drivers for her Intel GMA that came preinstalled when she bought her computer...

Well, most windows boxes don't have python, so there's no reason not to use opengl. Life is too short to blit on SDL 2d.

Nayr Wrote:Well, most windows boxes don't have python, so there's no reason not to use opengl. Life is too short to blit on SDL 2d.

Not an issue. http://www.py2exe.org/

Well, I'm mostly making 2D puzzle games and the like for a casual audience so Python/pygame seems to be working out well for me. I leave working on the hard core gamer stuff to my day job