RE: [GD-General] DLLs for game objects

[Jamie F. <ja...@qu...>]

We're heading toward a DLL for entities at some point, mostly so we can talk
to our editor nicely, but i'm not envisaging doing a DLL per entity :) But
it hasn't happened yet.

Jamie


-----Original Message-----
From: gam...@li...
[mailto:gam...@li...]On Behalf Of
Brian Hook
Sent: 25 March 2003 05:16
To: gam...@li...;
gam...@li...
Subject: [GD-General] DLLs for game objects


Relating to a thread on the gamedevlists-windows list, I thought I'd
just toss this out for discussion.

One of the reasons often touted for using a scripting language is
that you can easily modify the behaviour of game objects without
recompiling your main source base.  This is definitely an advantage.

The way you'd achieve the same effect using compiled code is via
DLLs.  At a coarser level, the Quakes did this with QuakeC (Q1),
server-side DLLs (Quake 2), and server + client side DLLs (Q3), but
each entity itself was not a separate DLL.

So let's take that to an extreme, where every object is generated by
a factory method within a specific DLL.  You get the advantage that
your "game kernel" does not have to be recompiled on the fly to
change behaviour, along with the advantages of debugger compatibility
and compiled code.

The downside is primarily complexity, in that you have hundreds or
maybe even thousands of DLLs for every entity, e.g. sword.dll and
orc.dll or what have you.  Not to mention that you could conceivably
run into a problem with DLL dependencies (what if vorpal_sword.dll is
dependent on sword.dll?).

None of these problems are benefits are particularly mind blowing,
but I haven't seen it done in practice so I was curious what others
might think of it.

I personally still prefer monolithic, statically linked stuff because
the practical advantages typically outweigh the theoretical benefits.

Thoughts and comments?

-Hook





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