Value-Add problems

I have major problems with the value-add extension. At first it works nicely, but after I expanded my project a lot, some of the comparing events started to cause chokes (freezing for a amount of time), generally lag the application or just entirely crashes. After manoeuvring my way through these, some of the comparing events that were positive started reporting as negative, when they clearly weren't. I do fancy this extension but these remind me why I wrote a personal memo to myself never to use it again when it first came out!
Though I would love to see these fixed, so I guess I better share some of the errors.

Crash/Lag
This application shows how the comparing events can lag out, choke and eventually crash an application.

Do you have the newest version (available in the released extensions forum)?

I'm checking the file now anyway.

EDIT: I don't see any lag, but I definitely see the crash. Seems like some information I had is incorrect.

it's the latest verison.

Also I'm having major issues with all comparing events turning negative. I would upload the application, but it's my personal project which I'd rather not share. If you pm me I can send the source to you.

Mechabowser, I've updated the extension so that it works with the HWA and Unicode versions :

http://www.clickteam.com/epicenter/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=153876

I'll send the changes to do to Dynasoft.

Does that fix your problem?

Yves i notice it has beta at the end for the zip, does this mean it could have problems and will be updated again soon or should it be safe to replace the older versions with? thanks :)

It's probably safe but use it only if you need it for the HWA version. And then overwrite it when Dynasoft will release it as official version.

Ok thanks :)

Im a bit off without MMF2 in my reach, so this object allows us to compensate the sad lack of String object that doesnt have Alterable Values?
Would thing like that work?

Alt.Value of String A (using this ext) = Value A of Active object X

It sounds great anyway!

extremely excellent, Yves. I'll report further if I encounter any bugs!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MechaBowser

extremely excellent, Yves. I'll report further if I encounter any bugs!

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there seems to be some more rare random crashes and lag. I can't seem to solo them out at the moment, but I'll notify you if I manage to do so

I'm currently on holiday in France, but it's a miserable evening so I'm on the net :)
Yves has sent me the code he used to make ValueAdd HWA and Unicode compatible. It won't fix the crash you found Mecha, which seems to be triggered by destroying objects in triggered events (e.g. fastloops, fast function, etc), but it will make it work at all in HWA. I'll apply the changes to my own version, along with my crash fix, as soon as I can. I can't promise how soon that will be, because I have a few job interviews in various corners of the UK to go to. Probably in about a week.

Crash explanation:
Normally MMF doesn't actually delete destroyed objects until after extensions get updated at the end of the frame. When you use a fastloop, MMF seems to delete them early without running an extension update. ValueAdd uses the end of frame update to check for destroyed objects that haven't yet been deleted, to free their extra alt values to avoid a memory leak. Unfortunately the way it references objects means that it will crash if some objects have been deleted already, before this update. The fix is for me to store the fixed values of the objects instead of referencing them directly, because it is possible to check if a fixed value refers to a valid object without crashing. :)
I'm also considering swapping the internal data over, so that it is stored by alt val name and then by object. The lookups on strings are more expensive, and also all the actions/conditions etc in ValueAdd are on one value name and multiple objects, so it should be considerably more efficient this way. It would slow the end of frame update, but I think the tradeoff is worth it.

v1.05 final released:
HWA and Unicode support
Mecha's crash is fixed
http://www.clickteam.com/epicenter/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=156262&#Post156 262

Thanks Dynasoft for your hard work on this extension.

Marv

Thanks :D

Nice job. :)

stephen1980

My game crash as never before. Debugging tools revealed it was ValueAdd. Would rather not want to share my game but Dynasoft you can contact me in [color:#FF0000]p[/color][color:#33CC00]r[/color][color:#FFCC33]i[/color][color:#CC33CC]v[/color][color:#FF9966]a[/color][color:#6666CC]t[/color][color:#FFCCFF]e[/color][color:#FF0000]~[/color][color:#999900]~[/color]

This is beginning to get annoying. How many crashes are there hiding in ValueAdd???

I'll be in touch tonight.

MechaBowser is a pro at discovering obscure crashes. Smile confidently when he finally quiets down :)

It would just be easier if MMF2 itself got updated with these changes lol

Mecha's crash seems to be caused by a previously unknown case causing MMF to behave differently towards conditions with "object" parameters. The crash only happens if you use an action which triggers a condition (such as function loop), and then have a value-add condition in the same event. I don't think it affects the built-in fast loops.
I have a workaround, which I have given him. It needs more work before I'll consider it ready for release.

yes

while testing my game publically, we were experiencing some crashes and heavy lag. Might wanna take a look at it again?

Thanks Mecha

My official apologies to Dynasoft for reporting a false bug :blush:

We tracked it down to missing funcloop params. Strings specifically I think.

Yay, found another bug in ValueAdd. It fails to look up an Object in its internal list if you never set any variables on it, which can cause it to fail comparisons instead of treating it like 0.0.