[crossfire] jxclient

[Kevin R. Bulgrien]

$ java -version
java version "1.6.0_02"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_02-b05)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 1.6.0_02-b05, mixed mode)

Using run.sh, I get... disappointingly...

  Warning ! True full-screen support is not available.

The system is a dual core pentium d (3.6 GHz) x86_64 with 3 Gb RAM.
The graphics card is a NVIDIA 7600 GT running a true nvidia driver
compiled on this machine.

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G70 [GeForce 7600 GT] (rev a1)

I don't know if running dual-monitors messes with performance, and
do not know much about graphics acceleration as I'm no power gamer
since my hardware is pretty old (except for this box which is a
sort of loaner), but I believe it is possible since TuxRacer rocks
even with only 17" monitor, you get a wierd feeling like you are
really going down the slope.  The jxclient is very slow.  It feels
like the character is heavily burdened, so is very hard to control.
Compared to both GTK clients, it is not very playable, so I suppose
it is not taking advantage of hardware acceleration :-(.

So far I have not had it crash.  I've played a bit with it, though at
1280x1024 it is only using about 1024x800 or so for the display, so I
need a magnifying glass to see in game text and inventory and the
little buttons.  It's odd because the map graphics are in your face
big compared to how I run the GTK clients.  Unfortunately I only have
17" monitors on this machine.

The graphics work is beautiful, but I must be a geek... it kind of
gets in the way, though to be fair, I'd have to see it using the full
1280x1024 to give it a reasonable evaluation, but I find it really
hard to monitor HP, Grace, and Mana.  The small veins in the icons
seem to take a lot of concentration to be able to monitor.  To me
the fast pace of crossfire means you can't spend a lot of time looking
to see how bad you're hurting or what you have left for mana/grace.
Don't know if that stuff is skinnable and so might be able to be done
differently to taste.  That dragon thing can about freak you out with
a low-level character when you walk around a corner the right way ;-).

It will be interesting to see it mature...  I, and other people played
the dxclient years ago because it had a bit of ambiance to it, and I've
often been sorry it disappeared, so I can see jxclient going over well
if performance improves, but the lag now would kill my character...
literally... and I'd hate to think I had to buy better hardware to get
it.

Long and short of it is, I'm glad I took the time to figure out how to
build it.  It'll be interesting to watch.

Oh, the speed thing reminds me... Daimonin sort of caught my eye some
time back, and I played it a while, though quit.  It was too slow.
There's some talk about slowing Crossfire down, and I'm all about not
dying before you can even press the word of recall hotkey, but here's
my vote to not go that slow... though I haven't tried it in ages to
be sure my impressions were up to date.

Wish list:  Scroll wheel support.