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Around 1996-1997, I had my first subject of Java in Monash. At that time programming languages were dominated by C/C++ and Pascal. Coding in Basic was also another alternative. Java were considered slow due to its implementation especially in graphics. Swing was not mature yet. DirectX was also still a baby. Graphics of most of the games was implemented through software rendering. No graphic accelerator card was inside my budget until Voodoo card entered Australian market in the beginning of 1997. GeForce were not there yet. Many games were written using C++ with many of Assembly code to achieve fast performance in graphics.
OpenGL and DirectX became common in games by the time cheap graphic accelerator cards poured into the market. Games were running under Windows (Win 95) not DOS anymore. But still 3D games were not sophisticated as now.

Lately Java could be used to code some fast graphics & animation. It has been introduced since second generation of Java. However it was still less than enough, it was still using software-rendered engine not hardware-rendered. I tried many game engines which most of them really good but still.. they use software-rendered.

With the help of OpenGL (for graphics) and OpenAL (for sound) now it seems possible to create dazzling multimedia application using Java. LightWeight Java Game Library is one of the best starting point to do this. I found that this library is really good. Many commercial games are written using this. The good thing is multi-platform. LWJGL is available in Windows, Mac OSX and also Linux. Remember Java, remember write once run anywhere! You can produce multimedia application & games in those platforms with only one code and a bit modification to the Java launcher. Why not using DirectX engine? No no no.. it’s not available in Linux and OSX. LWJGL utilises OpenGL and OpenAL - both are available to those major platforms.

What about the performance? The first time I ran the demo, I couldn’t believe myself it is written using Java, I thought it was written using at least C++, VB or Delphi. Other commercial games (trial though) I tried were also great in 3D graphics and sounds. You should try yourself to witness the amazing Java graphics and sounds.

Stumble it!