Next semester we have a module in making Java applications in a team. The requirement of the module is to make a game. Over the Christmas holidays I've been doing a little practice, but I can't figure out the best way to draw graphics.
I'm using the Java Graphics2D object to paint shapes on screen, and calling repaint() 30 times a second, but this flickers terribly. Is there a better way to paint high performance 2D graphics in Java?
What you want to do is to create a canvas component with a BufferStrategy and render to that, the code below should show you how that works, I've extracted the code from my self written Engine over here.
Performance solely depends on the stuff you want to draw, my games mostly use images. With around 1500 of them I'm still above 200 FPS at 480x480. And with just 100 images I'm hitting 6k FPS when disabling the frame limiting.
A small game (this one has around 120 images at once at the screen) I've created can be found here (yes the approach below also works fine as an applet.)
import java.awt.Canvas;
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.Graphics2D;
import java.awt.GraphicsConfiguration;
import java.awt.GraphicsEnvironment;
import java.awt.Toolkit;
import java.awt.Transparency;
import java.awt.event.WindowAdapter;
import java.awt.event.WindowEvent;
import java.awt.image.BufferStrategy;
import java.awt.image.BufferedImage;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.WindowConstants;
public class Test extends Thread {
private boolean isRunning = true;
private Canvas canvas;
private BufferStrategy strategy;
private BufferedImage background;
private Graphics2D backgroundGraphics;
private Graphics2D graphics;
private JFrame frame;
private int width = 320;
private int height = 240;
private int scale = 1;
private GraphicsConfiguration config =
GraphicsEnvironment.getLocalGraphicsEnvironment()
.getDefaultScreenDevice()
.getDefaultConfiguration();
// create a hardware accelerated image
public final BufferedImage create(final int width, final int height,
final boolean alpha) {
return config.createCompatibleImage(width, height, alpha
? Transparency.TRANSLUCENT : Transparency.OPAQUE);
}
// Setup
public Test() {
// JFrame
frame = new JFrame();
frame.addWindowListener(new FrameClose());
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(WindowConstants.DO_NOTHING_ON_CLOSE);
frame.setSize(width * scale, height * scale);
frame.setVisible(true);
// Canvas
canvas = new Canvas(config);
canvas.setSize(width * scale, height * scale);
frame.add(canvas, 0);
// Background & Buffer
background = create(width, height, false);
canvas.createBufferStrategy(2);
do {
strategy = canvas.getBufferStrategy();
} while (strategy == null);
start();
}
private class FrameClose extends WindowAdapter {
@Override
public void windowClosing(final WindowEvent e) {
isRunning = false;
}
}
// Screen and buffer stuff
private Graphics2D getBuffer() {
if (graphics == null) {
try {
graphics = (Graphics2D) strategy.getDrawGraphics();
} catch (IllegalStateException e) {
return null;
}
}
return graphics;
}
private boolean updateScreen() {
graphics.dispose();
graphics = null;
try {
strategy.show();
Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().sync();
return (!strategy.contentsLost());
} catch (NullPointerException e) {
return true;
} catch (IllegalStateException e) {
return true;
}
}
public void run() {
backgroundGraphics = (Graphics2D) background.getGraphics();
long fpsWait = (long) (1.0 / 30 * 1000);
main: while (isRunning) {
long renderStart = System.nanoTime();
updateGame();
// Update Graphics
do {
Graphics2D bg = getBuffer();
if (!isRunning) {
break main;
}
renderGame(backgroundGraphics); // this calls your draw method
// thingy
if (scale != 1) {
bg.drawImage(background, 0, 0, width * scale, height
* scale, 0, 0, width, height, null);
} else {
bg.drawImage(background, 0, 0, null);
}
bg.dispose();
} while (!updateScreen());
// Better do some FPS limiting here
long renderTime = (System.nanoTime() - renderStart) / 1000000;
try {
Thread.sleep(Math.max(0, fpsWait - renderTime));
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
Thread.interrupted();
break;
}
renderTime = (System.nanoTime() - renderStart) / 1000000;
}
frame.dispose();
}
public void updateGame() {
// update game logic here
}
public void renderGame(Graphics2D g) {
g.setColor(Color.BLACK);
g.fillRect(0, 0, width, height);
}
public static void main(final String args[]) {
new Test();
}
}
The flickering is due to you writing direct to the screen. Use a buffer to draw on and then write the entire screen in 1 go. This is Double Buffering which you may have heard of before. Here is the simplest form possible.
public void paint(Graphics g)
{
Image image = createImage(size + 1, size + 1);
Graphics offG = image.getGraphics();
offG.setColor(Color.BLACK);
offG.fillRect(0, 0, getWidth(), getHeight());
// etc
See the use of the off screen graphics offG. It is expensive to create the off screen image so I would suggest creating it only on first call.
There's other areas you can improve this further eg creating a compatible image, using clipping etc. For more fine tuned control of animation you should look into active rendering.
There's a decent page I have bookmarked discussing game tutorials here.
Good luck!
Java OpenGL (JOGL) is one way.
I think you made an override from paint(Graphics g)? This is not the good way. Use the same code but in paintComponent(Graphics g) instead of paint(Graphics g).
A label you can search is doublebuffer. That is what will be done automatically by overriding paintComponent.
There is a simple way to optimize your program. Get rid of any complex code and just use JComponent instead Canvas and paint your objects on it. Thats all. Enjoy it...
