If you've ever been involved in a media-intensive cross-platform project, you probably understand how messy it can be. This is mainly due to the API layering involved in making the Java API cross-platform. Because JIT compilers generate native code, Java performance starts approaching that of natively compiled languages like C and C++.Įven though JIT compilers greatly improve the performance of Java programs, it's still hard to pit Java head-to-head with a platform-dependent program written in C or C++. A just-in-time (JIT) compiler is a back-end compiler that converts generic Java bytecode executables into native executables. I'm referring to just-in-time Java compilers, which eliminate the costly interpretation of generic Java bytecodes. However, a recent technology has greatly improved this scenario. In fact, few commercial games relying heavily on high-performance graphics would run tolerably in a Java environment. How does Java fare as a game programming language and run-time environment? In its traditional interpreted form, Java is pretty weak. This stands in stark contrast to other areas of software development, where maintainability and ease of use generally take precedence over raw performance. Performance is so important in game programming that languages and development tools are regularly chosen solely based on their performance. If you shudder thinking about the fact that Java executables are interpreted, you are probably a game developer who understands the critical issue of performance in games. You'll see how Java makes it surprisingly easy to tackle many of the network challenges faced with other languages and development environments. This article explains networking support in Java and how it can be used to build multiplayer Web games. Because of its power and ease of use, standard networking support in Java is probably the most compelling reason for game developers to give Java a closer look.

Java game source code