Question

I know VB.NET, and I’ve been planning on creating a simple 2d game engine. I got no problems with creating such engine and running the actual game. However, I’ve been told that VB.NET might not be the best choice for “working too much with graphics”. I’d like to know if that’s true. Can VB.NET truly not manage efficiently loads of graphics simultaneously on the screen? If no, what kind of software am I supposed to use for creating this engine?

Answer 1

I have found that people generally view VB.NET as a subpar language, and mostly associate it with Visual Basic 6.0 (or earlier).

In the .NET world, VB.NET is a first class citizen that simply has a verbose syntax. It’s particularly because of the verbosity that I would probably choose C#, if not going with C++.

Still, you can use VB.NET to work with whatever drawing libraries that you want, and you can even use it with XNA and Managed DirectX. It can even be linked against unmanaged libraries as long as you are willing to do to the required interop.

As for managing the graphics on the screen efficiently, it really depends on how well you do it, and how much you want done. If someone can do it well in C#, then you can do it well in VB.NET with the exception of unsafe code. It’s too general to say either way given the vague “simple 2D game engine” description, but chances are it is more than possible.

These days, managed code is quickly catching up to unmanaged code, and while it’s not quite perfect, it is really impressively good.