NXT Programming: NXT-G or Robolab?

[Legoman]

Heya guys.

I've been quite keen on robotics for quite a few years, I remember in the early 2000's I was stoked to get an RCX, which kicked off a big passsion for Robotics and programming. I Do quite a lot of robotics, Entering compititions around the place, teachning little kids basics during the holidays and so on.

Last year, probably around 13 months ago, I got my first NXT. I've done a lot with it, and made all sorts of robots with it. But I have a problem: NXT-G's speed (possibly the firmware?) is incedably slow. I've been used to Robolab for the last 5 years, and coming to NXT-G was a bit scary in itself, but the more I use it, the more it simply cannot stay up-to-speed with what I need it to do. It's quite dissapointing.

So As of recently, I've gone back to Robolab, only to find another problem: Extra sensors don't work in Robolab. I currently own a Mindsensors lineleader and a hitechnic Gyro, but neither will work in Robolab, which is very dissapointing.

NXT-G is very slow prosessing, but robolab, while being incredably nice and fast, cannot take the custom sensors. So I'm wondering, Has anyone here used NXC or Robot-C for NXT? Do they have better processing speeds? Can they take custom sensors?

Would love some input with this, becuse I'm getting very fed up with the fact I have to choose between good sensory and decent speed.

Thanks guys

Edited October 16, 2010 by Legoman

[Conchas]

Yes, both ROBOTC and NXC support 3rd party sensors and are much faster than NXT-G.

ROBOTC is the fastest one.

You may find an article with a nice comparison of NXT programming languages, despite its age.

Notice on the Relative Execution Speed figures.

http://www.botmag.com/articles/10-31-07_NXT.shtml

[Legoman]

Wow that was a huge help, thanks heaps! I'll definately be having a a look at RobotC after reading that. Cheers

Edited October 16, 2010 by Legoman

[JopieK]

RobotC is the best way for programmers. For non-programmers, I would definately choose NXT-G, I'm a high school and college teacher in Informatics (so should know what I talk about in case of programming).

[Jetro]

AFAIK RoboLab and NXT-G run on the same firmware so when you say 'slow' I take it you refer to the interface and download to brick speed, which in the case of NXT-G can indeed be excruciatingly slow.

But on the NXT the diffrerences between those programming languages should not be very big as the firmware speed is the same (there is still the fact that NXC for example can generate "cleaner" more "compact and direct" code, optimizing the speed of the program)

If what you need is faster firmware (faster than RoboLab) you should have a look at either RobotC or LeJOS, both of which use alternative, faster firmware.