GLBASIC on Mac M1 using Parallels 17

[loftcat]

Hi everyone, just wondering if anyone else has tried GLBasic on Windows 11 in Parallels on a Mac M1? I've found GLBasic (via Steam) installs fine and you can use the editor, but I'm experiencing fading of the sprites during game play. First few seconds it's okay. The fading effect could also be intepreted as flickering at high speed. Curious where the problem might be - ARM, Parallels, Windows 11 or the fact it's Windows 11 insider preview. Could be any or many of these causing a problem I guess! 

[SnooPI]

Welcome to you 

Not easy to answer without a snippet of the code 
Try that: Enable vsync with the LIMITFPS function.
https://www.glbasic.com/xmlhelp.php?lang=en&id=49&action=view

[loftcat]

Thank you  I've been using GLBasic for quite a while now, but pretty new to the forum.

I've tried the LIMITFPS instruction before my main loop. It does affect the game speed as I adjust the limitfps number, but unfortunately it doesn't stop the flickering. In fact it's rather odd, everything on the screen starts off normal, but fades out after 5 to 10 seconds.

I realise I'm testing over a virtual machine on an Arm processor in a preview dev version of Win 11, so not big expectations here, but would be nice to get GLBasic working on my Macbook M1. Should also point out the game runs perfectly fine on a normal Windows 10 PC.

By the way, GLBasic works very well over Remote Desktop to a Windows 10 PC.

[loftcat]

Well I have a bit of an update.. I've installed Windows 11 (insider release) using VMWare and my GLBasic games run!  It looks like the fading/flickering issue might be down to Parallels.
It does come with a caveat though, because VMWare do not offically support M1 Arm it appears you cannot install VMWare tools, or change the video driver from the basic Windows default. When I compile and run my game GLBasic pops up with a message "Please update your GFX adapter's driver so it can render OpenGL by HARDWARE". I guess this is quite a restriction, however my games does run and at the correct speed and rendering.
So a possible (limited) solution if you want to compile and run GLBasic programs on an M1.

[SnooPI]

Very interesting.
Thank you for this information Loftcat.

[dreamerman]

Windows 11 has some issues so I would not use it for such thing for moment, Win 10 would be better imho. I don't know what gpu configuration options Parrarel has, so hard to say, as generally driver issues can be really tricky.
One thing that I can advise is running standalone GLB version (both editor and compiled projects) - not launching it from Steam, as  Steam attaches overlay for everything, this also can cause some problems even if it's not properly displayed.
Sadly Apple restricted new iOS/MacOS apps to use Metal API, I'm curious if currently OpenGL apps could be compiled to MacOS as Steam is available there so can be used to distribute games on this platform. HTML5 target is also a solution if it handles all GLB functions properly. Please update this topic if you found anything new, specially related to M1 macs, as this architecture change will evolve in future, on PC market we are years before any ARM revolution, but node shrinking and new technologies still will give nice improvements.

[loftcat]

Unfortunately only Windows 11 Insider Preview version is now available for Arm. For some reason (presumaly to pursuade users to upgrade), MS have pulled Windows 10 Arm edition from their site. Given that GLBasic works with VMWare Windows 11 may not be the culprit here anyway.
I'll try and find one of my old non-Steam installations of GLBasic and try that, will report back

[dreamerman]

Steam version contains also standard executable that doesn't require Steam to run in background, this is that file: "...\Steam\steamapps\common\GLBasic_SDK\EditorE.exe"
Ah so there is no option to run x86 Windows in such virtualization machine? I didn't touch them in a long time, but they were specially handy in running some old Win95 games

Edit: and of course you can use Steam version normally and just run GLB apps directly - not from editor and see if flickering still appears.

[loftcat]

Good shout on running outside of Steam! 

If you run the EditorE.exe file the programs run avoid the fading of the graphics!
I've also successfully run programs by running the exe files directly from the distribute folder.

It looks like the fading begins the moment the Steam community notification pops up in the bottom right corner of the screen. Still not sure why this is an issue in Parallels and not VMWare on the Arm Macs, but can confirm GLBasic is working okay in both      I'd recommend Parallels over VMWare at the moment with this 'workaround' for the better video support, but VMWare is a nice free solution for now.