[java] Server VM in Manifest?

I''m not sure, but a quick google doesn''t bring up anything. Either way though, I wouldn''t worry about it. Just make startup scripts for the top 2-3 platforms you think your game is going to be distributed on that have the -server tag. Most other platforms, the user might run from the command line anyway, so you put something in the README suggesting it.

In fact, people will probably appreciate the choice. Even though the server VM can run code closer to the performance of c++, it takes longer(ages on some systems) to start and it has an annoying tendency to take more ram than the client.

True, well I was anyway planning on packing a batch file for running the code in client instead. So I guess I could make 2 shellscripts for the 3 most common platforms (server/client scripts that is) and then allow the others to choose by themselves from the commandline.

I guess if you have a platform that isn''t Linux or Windows, you might anyway be an "advanced" user and be very familiar with the prompt.

It''s freely redistributable in place of the client VM. I believe there was some talk of the new Webstart having an option to use the server VM. In general though I advise that you don''t use the server VM for clientside applications as the warmup time is so severe that it makes your games look totally shit and unprofessional for the first minute or two - generally a crucial time for making that first impression.

Cas

You could have a look at JSmooth. It creates an exe wrapper for your jar file, and I think you can pass commandline arguments to your program so you can pass the -server flag.

Problem is that it makes a windows executable... meaning no portability...

Not that it matters in the case of the server VM because
a) Linux users are ... well, Linux users, and you''re only doing it for kudos on Linux, right?
b) MacOS doesn''t actually have a server VM
c) Nobody plays games on anything else

Cas

so, how does one get a hold of the server VM for windows? I don't recall seeing any notification about it after downloading the sdk.

edit: scratch my last question
I just installed sdk1.4.2 and there is the bin directory, which has the compiler and everything, include a copy of the VM, and then there is the jre directory, which also has a copy of the vm, and directories labeld client and server, both with a jvm.dll file and an Xusage.txt file. Now, I don't recall, but I don't think 1.5.0 has this (maybe for the beta they decided to leave it out for the time being).

This brings up a question, why the two copies of the vm in the bin directory in the <sdk>/bin; directory and the <sdk>/jre/bin directory?

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capn_midnight | Captain Midnight | deviantArt
ACM | SIGGRAPH | Generation5

[edited by - capn_midnight on June 3, 2004 4:08:09 PM]

The SDK comes with the server VM, but the regular JRE that people download from www.java.com doesn''t, because it''s supposed to be as small as possible. However, I think you should be allowed under the license to redistribute the server VM separately, to people who wish to use it.