Loading Screen?

My game is going to be pretty big in size. It has 12 levels planned and so far, I created 2. Now when I start up the game, a white box about the size of the frame window appears in the upper left corner of the screen. (I have the game set to be maximized on start up.) For about 5 seconds, the computer thinks the application is unresponsive. (The phrase Not Responding appears in the name of the application.) Then finally, the first screen of the game appears. This game is going to be in a competition so I don't want the judges to first think the game is not working properly. Is there any way I can have a functional loading screen to make the game look neater?

the white box you have is the debugger i think. Do you have any objects adding themselves to it at the start of the frame?

It's not the debugger. I ran it as a separate application on a different computer. In fact, that other computer is more powerful than the laptop I used to make the game.

Maybe you can do something with the subapplication object. For example you could leave the subapp empty, and once the loading screen is ready, open the real game in the subapp. Not sure if that'll work, but might be worth a try.

Why not just simply use the progress bar object?

Would that help if the first frame isn't even loaded yet?
(I haven't used that extension yet)

That is common behavior when you run a frame that has alot of fastloops in the Start of frame events. Is this the case for the first frame of your game? Does the game hang on the first frame no matter what frame is the first?

Apparentley, it only happens sometimes, but I think it will still be nice just to have a loading screen just in case the judges computers are slower than mine.

I think a loading screen would actually be a good idea.

slow down your frames per second, works for me.

then say after 5 seconds, restore the fps to the original speed.

Quote:

---

slow down your frames per second, works for me.

then say after 5 seconds, restore the fps to the original speed.

---

excuse me, slow down your frame rate, not your fps.

IMHO, loading screens/bars are not needed and a waste on our computer systems. When I use one of my test computers (333mhz win98SE) I have never needed them. You must have one big application with a lot of resource hog. This is IMHO.

But that's not an opinion nivram, its a statement, more of a fact.

I guess Karl is looking for the subtle loading type screen which is actually relevant to the objects being loaded in that particular frame.

IMHO means in my humble opinion, so you are incorrect that it is a statement. A person is using a huge resourse hog to need a loading screen. That is a statement prOtax.

Ok, so I will lower myself to your level if that's what turns you on, I know what IMHO means that's why I said its not an opinion. What you said is more towards a fact.

Quote:

---

When I use one of my test computers (333mhz win98SE) I have never needed them.

---

You are also stating that his application is a resource hog? You do not even know the details of his application so how can you comment?

A bat and ball game you make may run fine on a 333mhz processor running win98, but if it's a game in development that is close to a good GTA clone, then of course its gonna be intensive, which is why Karl is asking for a loading screen so his user's don't think that his app has crashed, but is loading resources into memory.

All in all, what you said wasn't helpful to him at all, and again I will refer to my point, that I think Karl is looking for code which actually relates to the relative loading of objects.

Go to frame properties and deactive "handle colisions even..." - it always helped me a lot.
Another idea would be on large objects use choice "load on call", or use it with as many objects you want.
The last one is to have some of them global (large backdrops etc.) and load them one by one in a row of frames. But with this one I guess it will eat more resources.

Thanks for the great tip Blizna After the game starts, take it to the game frame that opens a subapp first that says loading, make some kind of a time delay by setting the timer to zero.

As Bliza said, have the objects load on call. When timer equals 30 seconds or whatever, destroy the subapp. Maybe that will work, but I haven't tested it, but hopefully this will help Karl. I appreciate the back up pr0tax.

Karl. I have uploaded an example loading screen, using a sub-app, in the file archives.

http://theclickteam.com/epicenter/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=124296#Post1242 96

Nivram