Question

I realize JavaFx 2.0 has only been out for a short time but was hoping someone is aware of an FX 2.0 game engine ( or even such a project in open source development )? I’ve been unable to find one- so if you do please point me in the right direction.

I’m also wondering how JavaFX2.0 will change java game programming. From what I’ve read and the small experiments I’ve made I can definitely say it is much more pleasant to code in. And I believe it runs on a faster hardware accelerated graphics engine than regular Java swing or awt based stuff. But is it complete enough to support an entire game framework of any complexity?

Answer 1

JavaFX is great for simple browser based / 2D games – the kind of areas where Flash is currently most common. Reasons:

• Great performance for 2D apps (good use of hardware acceleration under the hood)
• Very easy to skin with CSS – web designers will love this
• The new JavaFX 2.0 API is very usable from pure Java (or other JVM languages like Scala, Clojure)
• Cross platform, so can reach the largest possible audience

It’s unlikely to be suitable for complex / high performance 3D games where you will need a proper OpenGL game engine like jMonkeyEngine.

I think the jury is still out with respect to the games in the middle ground (shoot-em-ups, 3rd person view RPGs, RTS games etc.). These games don’t necessarily need a full 3D engine but do need good, smooth graphics performance. I suspect JavaFX would be fine for these on modern hardware, but I’d strongly suggest doing a quick prototype just to check the performance meets your requirements.