Isn't this what we SHOULD be using Canvas for?

bd · on May 21, 2010

Probably they didn't use canvas for the same reason as Google (for their current Pac-Man logo game): DOM based renderer will work on more browsers.

Canvas emulation for Explorer is not very fast. This may not be a problem for chart-like applications, but when you want smooth animations, milliseconds add up.

Now, if you excuse me, I will shamelessly plug my recent canvas game (I don't support Explorer):

http://alteredqualia.com/cubeout/

gommm · on May 21, 2010

Great, I loved blockout as a kid. Spent a lot of time with my parents trying to beat each others high score. Brings back a lot of good memories.

bd · on May 21, 2010

Yep, I also remember Blockout fondly. Way more fun than Tetris, despite being much less popular.

kiba · on May 21, 2010

Can I plug my canvas game too?

I just finished up a tetris clone last night:

http://kibabase.com/jstet.html

GrandMasterBirt · on May 21, 2010

Great. You got me fired for playing. I blame you.

:)

Addictive. Still needs some help from frame-rate awareness. When a "slowdown" occures the game needs to be aware of it's processing slowdown and slow down the game fps to compensate otherwise things "jump".

bd · on May 21, 2010

About slowdowns. Which browser/OS do you use?

I know I have troubles on Firefox on Windows 7.

I do compensation for actual elapsed time, but unfortunately this doesn't help when setInterval fires too late (in FF I can get occasional "jump" frame with 30x usual duration, I suspect due to garbage collection [1]).

Chrome and Opera are much more reliable in their JS timing.

----

[1] You can check GC + animation test here:

http://hacks.mozilla.org/2010/01/javascript-speedups-in-fire...

FF (even version 3.6) performs pretty badly: I got 80-120 ms delay due to GC, Opera has 21ms, Chrome has 8 ms.

For my game it's even worse, normal frame can take 14 ms, garbage collected one 500 ms.