Advice on BlitzMax or Blitz+

If I was to write a 2D education game using Blitz, which would you choose between BlitzMax and Blitz+?

Take into consideration the following:

* Many primary schools have low spec PCs
* Blitz+ only requires DirectX 1 - supplied with all versions of Windows from 95 onwards
* BlitzMax will likely run slower on older PCs (from what I saw if it a while ago).

On the other hand...

* BlitzMax is multi platform
* BlitzMax has better 2D effects for transparency, etc.
* Object orientation with BlitzMax is a plus

... what do you think?

I couldn't add more to that list, regarding future-proofness and language features BMax+gui wins big time, but it's true that B+ is far more lightweight.

How low-spec is "low-spec" anyway?

It all depends on what you're about to code. It's not like yesteryear's PC's are completely useless ofcourse..

I've saw primary schools still using Windows 98, so wouldn't want to think of what spec they are using...

From my research, I can see that roughly 58% of primary school desktops and 75% of their laptops are using Windows XP. From this, I think it would be safe to aim the software to run on a minimum of 500Mhz machine (or maybe 800Mhz?).

I'm using bmax/gui on my win98e system, which is an athlon2ghz system with 256MB mem. Works all ok here..

For the most part, Win98 is fine for most applications (don't know any reason why it wouldn't be), but if schools are using Win98 or Win95, it would be logical to think that their hardware is about 10 years old because schools would buy a new computer rather than add new hardware.

I think the sticking point would be 3D hardware, which BlitzMax needs for things like rotating 2D sprites.

BlitzPlus will run on just about anything. I once hauled a 1993 PC out of storage and installed BlitzPlus. Some things ran acceptably, but many were unusably slow. I was amazed that it worked at all, considering the 133MHz AMD K5 CPU and Mach32 2MB graphics card. It was running Windows 95, although the PC originally had Windows 3.11.

Yeah, because of the possibility of a complete lack of 3D hardware on some of the machines, I'd plump for Blitz+. What other choice is there?

Why not just try it? Hop to that school, take B+ and Max with you on a CD orso, and compile some.

I think he wants to write something for Primary schools in general, not a specific one. Correct me if I'm wrong.

You're right big10p; I'll be aiming the game at primary schools in general. It's a shame that there's a lot of schools out there with poor hardware.

What do you think about developing the game in Flash?

hmyeah.. could be.

There's this circle he's in then: schools won't install new systems because educational software isn't spec-demanding. And educational software can't be demanding because of the low-spec systems.

Should one stick to this situation or should one break it by demanding new spec? Usually those schools are just governmental institutions, could they get some governmental funds for new hardware?

I know nothing about Flash dev, but I suspect that'd be a bad idea. Some Flash games chug in places, even on my machine. What does Flash use to do it's alpha blending, scaling and rotation, anyway?

/me am teh ignorant on this.

There is BlitzMax which can also do it's drawing using GDI, which is probably what BlitzPlus is doing.

Yeah, it is a bad thing to be limited by the hardware specification. I wonder how many schools use Macs?

I've developed an internet portal that the game can connect to, allowing for things like user accounts for progress monitoring reports with graphs to be used, hence why I mentioned Flash.

I'm looking to create a simple platform type of game with an education twist. How would BlitzMax run a game like this in general on a 500Mhz machine?

In addition, I would assume that Apple would have a bigger market share in the education market, as they seem to have been successful in the US education market.

I would also assume that there would be less competition on the Mac? Also, Apple seem to provide Mac developers with a lot of support.

This is more likely to be bought by parents than schools, unless you are somehow specifically targeting schools. If their setup is so old they can't run a basic Max game, they are unlikely to shell out for new software, IMO. I would go with Max in the hope that Mac sales compensate.

I've worked in schools. They're screwed when it comes to funds.

If you -need- it to be multiplatform, BlitzMax. Otherwise Blitz+. Even if you need it to run on... MacOSX (probably never Linux)... I'd still suggest getting both and coding it twice. One for Mac, one for Windows in B+. You may be able to get away with BMax for Windows if you use SDL perhaps.

I decided that I shall develop an engine for the game in BlitzMax and Flash, with a level editor that can create the levels for the game with all of the required information. I will provide the BlitzMax version with the ability to change resolution, so schools with really old PCs can choose a resolution of something silly like 320x240... If that's not enough, I'll write another engine in Blitz+.