8 ms·
RAD Debugger
- cianmc 3y agoLooks great, been following Ryan's work for awhile so excited to see his take on a fully realized production app.
- mesbahamin 3y agoI've been looking forward to this for a long time [1]. I had no idea they would release the source under a permissive license. Can't wait to try it out! [1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20160806065601/http://www.radgametools.com/debug.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20160806065601/http://www.radgam...
- dagmx 3y agoDoes anyone have a screenshot or video of it in use? Being limited to windows makes it difficult to try out, and understand what it brings over existing debugger options.
- TnS-hun 3y agoHere are two screenshots: https://twitter.com/mrexodia/status/1745769835215139131 https://twitter.com/mrexodia/status/1745769835215139131 https://twitter.com/MyNameIsMJP/status/1745663984408351028 https://twitter.com/MyNameIsMJP/status/1745663984408351028
- dagmx 3y agoThank you very much!
- mdaniel 3y agohttps://pbs.twimg.com/media/GDo3tH8WgAAaIrw?format=png&name=medium https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GDo3tH8WgAAaIrw?format=png&name=... https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GDnYJFOaQAAuNTq?format=jpg&name=medium https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GDnYJFOaQAAuNTq?format=jpg&name=... (those are the urls from the Xeets; I didn't alter the query params, they came that way)
- cxcorp 3y agoAnyone seeing any groundbreaking features or reasons to try this over x64dbg or other existing debuggers?
- cianmc 3y agoHaven't fully digged into it, but firstly, the executable is tiny, source code seems sane, performance for average sized projects appears to be better than existing solutions, and also some interesting features such as viewing texture/image buffers within the debugger
- Karliss 3y agox64dbg is primarily made for reverse engineering but RAD Debugger is made more for the context of game development. Those are two different usescase with different priorities. I would expect source code debugging and debug symbol related features much more prioritized in RAD debugger compared x64dbg. Even x64dbg own feature list calls it's PDB support as basic. RAD Debugger supports natvis (same format as used by VS for describing how to visualize more complex data structures), I don't think x64dbg supports that. A more relevant question might be what RAD debugger offers or plans to offer compared to Visual Studio C++ debugger. Based on http://web.archive.org/web/20230923095510/http://www.radgametools.com/debug.htm.htm http://web.archive.org/web/20230923095510/http://www.radgame... seems like an important part of motivation was providing Visual Studio quality or better debugging experience for Linux and console targets and doing that with single tool.
- dvdkon 3y agoNice! Another FLOSS GUI debugger is always welcome. A historical capture of this page provides some more context: http://web.archive.org/web/20230923095510/http://www.radgametools.com/debug.htm http://web.archive.org/web/20230923095510/http://www.radgame... It's rather open, which I appreciate (I suppose it's partly why so many companies licence Bink). Interestingly, it seems to have been primarily a Linux project at some point, but this released version only has Windows support. I'd also like to know what this release means for the project's future.
- cianmc 3y agoFuture Linux support is already confirmed so don't worry!
- deagle50 3y agoAmazing!
- cxcorp 3y agoThanks! Looks like this project has some high ambitions: > What's after that? > > Tons of stuff. Tons and tons and tons of stuff. > Debuggers have not substantially evolved since the first Turbo Debugger in 1988! > For example, we have had GUI debuggers for 20 years now, and we can't see bitmaps! We can't hear sound buffers. We can't view vertex arrays. > We can't graph values over time. We can't even load a debugging session from yesterday and review it! We have a long way to go. > Debugging is desperate need of updating, and we see as a long term project. We'll be adding visualizers, new debugging workflows (step through code on multiple platforms at the same time for example), and new features for a long time.
- armada651 3y agoWhen I used Xcode for the first (and so far only) time I was surprised I could actually view bitmaps in the debugger and I've wondered why that's not commonplace ever since.
- 3y ago
- fulafel 3y agoWhich language(s) does it aim to support?
- Warwolt 3y agoWould look like C/C++
- mariusor 3y ago> It currently only supports local-machine Windows x64 debugging with PDBs, with plans to expand and port in the future. In the future we'll expand to also support native Linux debugging and DWARF debug info. All languages that have compilers able to produce PDB debug symbols, and in the future all those that can produce DWARF symbols. That's not restricted just to C/C++ as the sibling comment suggests.
- 0xcde4c3db 3y agoIn case anyone else saw the name and was wondering: yes, it is "RAD" as in RAD Game Tools, which was acquired by Epic a few years ago.
- sznio 3y agoTheir website is beautiful http://www.radgametools.com/ http://www.radgametools.com/
- RamRodification 3y agoNot necessarily asking you specifically, but posting here because I noticed it on their website that you linked: How is Bink video still a thing? Aren't the other well established codecs able to beat it? Edit: Some answers here, if you believe their own stats: http://www.radgametools.com/bnkmain.htm http://www.radgametools.com/bnkmain.htm
- enneff 3y agoEven if other codecs can beat it on size and quality, if the ergonomics of the playback library are substantially better for game developers (as they claim) then that would make it a compelling choice.
- patmorgan23 3y agoIf it ain't broke don't fix it. Games aren't under the bandwidth pressure streaming services are so there's not as much reason to switch to something like AV1.
- Jeaye 3y agoI find myself writing a great deal of C++ these days, building jank (the native Clojure dialect on LLVM with C++ interop). Even with modern practices, and Rust-like semantics (i.e. `result<R, E>`, `option<T>`, etc), every large feature implemented is followed by some period of debugging. None of the GUI debuggers I've tried, on Linux, have been compelling. Most either require IDE setup for my project or still look like they're from the 90s. I just end up using gdb, with some improved configs, in my terminal. So far, the most exciting project to follow for this has been Cutter. However, I'd be easily sold on this once it gets Linux support. Thanks for making it open source. :)
- echelon 3y agoI want to make a few predictions for the next 10 years: - Godot will win over indie devs and start to become feature-comparable with Unreal and Unity. By the end of the decade, fewer corporate projects will choose Unreal or Unity and instead opt for internal forks of Godot. This is repeating the same formula the Blender-ization of 3D software packages did. - Non-C++ engines such as Bevy will start to grow a large base of their own and step into the realm that Godot once occupied. Lots of use by hobbyists, especially those wanting to dive into lower level pieces and wanting to avoid C++isms. - Epic Games Store won't reach a significant fraction of Steam's user base. - Growth of Unreal and Unity will stall.
- fxtentacle 3y agoI see a lot of potential for Unreal Engine simply because of their ecosystem. Game assets will soon dominate the costs of any game. That means a full asset store and a few AI tools will be the deciding factor between "too expensive" and "highly profitable" games.
- echelon 3y ago> Game assets will soon dominate the costs of any game. I'm not even so sure! I don't know which costs will trend towards zero. If I had to make another prediction, though, it's that all the centuries of engineering that went into Unreal Engine will wind up being revealed as just solving for a local optima. Signs point to neural rendering and neural engines possibly being a thing, and if so, everything we've built so far is just legacy tech.
- vanjajaja1 3y agoi dont understand how you launch a graphical debugger and not add a screenshot to the readme.md
- TillE 3y ago"The RAD Debugger is currently in ALPHA" Wouldn't really call it launched, just in development publicly.
- TeaDude 3y agoCompletely detached from the debugging experience but that actually looks like a cute little custom GUI framework ...and it's all in C!
- shmerl 3y ago> Porting the src/os layers to Linux. This includes core operating system abstraction (virtual memory allocation, threading and synchronization primitives, and so on), and graphical operating system abstraction (windows, input events, and so on). Looks like a massive undertaking. They should stick with Wayland only to limit the effort scope.
- cianmc 3y agoWayland, and the entire Linux Window manager situation seems like a massive mess from the pov of an outsider, a widely used, stable and open-source app that can bypass this unnecessary complexity could be a great example for other apps to follow
- shmerl 3y agoNot sure what you mean about bypassing complexity, but reinventing the wheel might be a waste of time unless you really need it. For example Wine supporting Wayland had to do a lot of relatively direct work with the protocols and it made sense there, but otherwise you can just use SDL or something similar or even a higher level toolkit like Qt.
- forrestthewoods 3y agoSuper excited for this. Clearly has a ways to go. And tbh I kinda wish it used Dear ImGui rather than a weird, janky, custom tool. The fact that it’s MIT open source is incredible.
- nightowl_games 3y agoCan you cite done specific instances of jank?
- forrestthewoods 3y agoWeird docking. Panels don’t disappear when empty. No visible controls. Have to use shortcuts or toolbar to split/remove panels. Font rendering feels off. Toolbar lists are super compressed. Needs more vertices spacing. Underlined characters for shortcut hints is absolutely awful. Various commands create kinda-sorta pop-ups that are really weird and atypical. I’ve only played with it for a little bit. This is all surface level stuff. Not a big deal. But RemedyBG has a better UX.
- rfleury 3y agoThere are certainly issues (it’s in alpha after all—this was meant to be more of a soft launch, but it then kind of blew up), but I don’t think anything you listed would qualify as “jank”, and rather your unfamiliarity with the system or non-standard/idiosyncratic designs? That doesn’t apply to the “underline to hint @ shortcut” point, which has been a standard Windows UI principle since, well, before I was born… But for instance, there are visible controls—they are available via a central command layer which fuzzy matches virtually every operation available in the debugger. This lister also in-place allows rebinding of any command. The panels don’t disappear when empty to avoid janky consequences that arise in traditional docking systems, like DearImGui’s & others. Panels and tabs are completely orthogonal. I plan to introduce a more familiar docking system which offers, in effect, fast paths for the more granular panel/tab operations. But the overarching reason why I chose a from scratch UI layer is because DearImGui leads to more janky results and is much less-suited for the ambitions of the frontend. I don’t think the frontend would be nearly as solid had I chosen a different route.