Google I/O 2011: Bringing C and C++ Games to Android

Ian Ni-Lewis, Dan Galpin

Want to make great Android games, but you're not a Java programmer? This talk is for you. Android supports a toolchain for building applications in C/C++. In December 2010 it got a makeover specifically aimed at making life better for game developers. This presentation gives an introduction to Android programming in C/C++, covers what's new and improved since last year, and shows best practices for building and debugging games with the NDK.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Android

[Mega1hacker]

Nice hair



[nitrousdigital007]

Why oh why didn't I attend this session!!!?

See 49m 52s into this video for my motivations :)

[stiftersd]

Really long video

[jamelt]

the first guys sarcasm is on hundred thousand trillion

[kingcrimson234]

i am going to look into the new NDK. i've got an x86 PC emulator that I wrote in plain old C that i would love to port to android, and i sure as hell am not going to rewrite THAT in java. can you imagine an interpreting x86 CPU emulator running in java on the processors that you find in a phone? :shudders:

[SnowWolf91]

@bustaballs I thought iOS didn't support Java?

[jellyfaceification]

@nitrousdigital007 49:52

[ss4cypher]

isn't linux c?

<_<

[xxxXFURION242Xxxx]

@Mega1hacker He would look better bold xD

[bustaballs]

@FedericoJimbo Not necessarily. You always have to, at the very least, compile the code for the different OS or platform. In Java, the compiled code will run on anything that supports java. Some libraries are only supported on certain operating systems and platforms so sometimes you have to port the code to a different library. When developers program in C/C++ for Xbox 360, they might use direct x to make the game. However, the PS3 and Wii do not support direct x so they must port the code.

[FedericoJimbo]

@bustaballs I see, for every os your will right separate C++ code,.

[bustaballs]

@FedericoJimbo Pointers are just one of the things that make C++ far more powerful than Java. C++ is also much much faster than Java.

What makes Java appealing is that it works on everything with no need to "port" or compile for various systems. When you develop an app for a phone in Java, it will run on Windows, Mac, iOS, Linux, Unix, and every other OS that supports Java. If you develop for multiple platforms and you don't develop things that are very resource intensive, Java is ideal.