Why are games requiring MS .NET Framework installation?

denisv on 3/12/2008 at 14:30

We say Yava and C-Hash in the old world.

Matthew on 3/12/2008 at 15:08

No, we don't. :p

Bjossi on 3/12/2008 at 15:24

C# is a great programming language imo, especially when learning programming for the first time. If more and more games are being programmed in C# I certainly won't complain. :p

Ajare on 3/12/2008 at 16:20

Quote Posted by Bjossi

If more and more games are being programmed in C# I
certainly won't complain. :p

I will, it's fucking slow. And so a completely unnecessary flame-war is started, ++trollPoints.

I'm guessing that these games use C# for something though, because otherwise bundling the entire framework is overkill, when you only need to silently install a few DLLs for a modern MSVC++ app.

WingedKagouti on 3/12/2008 at 17:22

Quote Posted by Ajare

I will, it's fucking slow.

Still a speed demon compared to Java.

denisv on 3/12/2008 at 17:42

That doesn't say anything. Java works on the geological time scales. Countless creatures are born, live, and perish in a single Java cycle.

Phatose on 3/12/2008 at 18:15

It's not that slow, really. No one's going to make the cry engine in it, or real time medical radiation monitoring software. But for frontends, installers, shit like that, it's more then fast enough.

It's plenty fast for most uses, and I'd even go as far as to say that a lot of the time, it's going to be faster the unoptimized C++ code. Well optimized C++ code is going to be faster, of course, but 95% of the time no one is going to spend the time to actually optimize that stuff. Just like hand optimized assembler is going to be faster the C++ most of the time, but who's fucking going to spend their time doing that? We've got ship dates to meet, you know.

Ulukai on 3/12/2008 at 19:06

Quote Posted by Phatose

We've got ship dates to meet, you know.

This.

I wouldn't write a highly intensive graphics app with C#, but I use it day in, day out for writing high performance data manipulation apps.

There is now a .NET "(http://blogs.windowsclient.net/trickster92/archive/2008/05/21/introducing-the-net-framework-client-profile.aspx) Client Profile" available, that in most cases, is enough for desktop PCs, this cuts down the size of the framework installed on clients by omitting what are server specific libraries in 90% of cases.

(http://www.hanselman.com/smallestdotnet/) This site is also pretty useful for getting the smallest version of .NET that you need.

Al_B on 3/12/2008 at 20:17

Quote Posted by Phatose

Just like hand optimized assembler is going to be faster the C++ most of the time, but who's fucking going to spend their time doing that? We've got ship dates to meet, you know.

Not only that but 99% of the time it's not how you can get the same code to run faster - it's how you need to change the algorithm that makes the biggest difference.

I was initially cynical about .net myself but compared to the idiosyncratic languages it's superceded it's a vast improvement. It's a shame that they (Microsoft) haven't realised that it would be far better with a finer grain approach to framework distribution. When I create an app that only uses forms - why shouldn't I only have to include the distributable parts of the namespaces that I use?

Ajare on 3/12/2008 at 20:38

Quote Posted by Phatose

It's plenty fast for most uses, and I'd even go as far as to say that a lot of the time, it's going to be faster the unoptimized C++ code. Well optimized C++ code is going to be faster, of course, but 95% of the time no one is going to spend the time to actually optimize that stuff.

We're discussing games here (and that was the context of my original remark), of course the code is going to get optimised. And your comparison between C# and 'unoptimised' C++ is just bizarre.