Slight but noticable slowdown after adding a bunch of active objects for dark effect

Hi guys, been awhile and hard at work on my new game however I ran into a snag last night that while not crippling it's a bit disheartening because I really don't want to remove this feature.

My game Weebish Mines is a platformer / Metroidvania that's very influenced by the old NES classic "Legacy of the Wizard". Anyhow all's well with how I'm handling the dark effect / torch areas in the game normally but after I added the effect to an entire game area I'm noticing a lot of slowdown.

Each 'tile' or whatever (though techincally it's not really tile-based) is a black 16 x 16 active object that exists on top of everything. I'm running a fast loop through the # of black tiles that sets their flag 0's to *off* and then if any are overlapping the guy's torch it sets that flag 0 to *on*. Last if any flag 0 is *on* it makes that black tile invisible and we get the effect that's seen here in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sNco4rbSqY

(Sorry I forgot how to embed a youtube video here)

I thought at first it might just be the fastloop process for these now that there's a lot of them however upon disabling the fastloop completely I'm still getting the slowdown. So since I figured maybe it had something to do with the amount of active objects on the screen I tried increasing the # of objects at runtime from 1000 to 2500 and then 5000 for laughs but the slowdown still remains.

Sorry, I hope this is clear enough. I don't have HWA or even know how it'd work with this if I could. Any tips for solving my problem please? I'm using vanilla MMF2, a slightly older build than the current one- I just don't know what build it is right now (254, 255?)

Thank you!!

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Originally Posted by Del_Duio

Hi guys, been awhile and hard at work on my new game however I ran into a snag last night that while not crippling it's a bit disheartening because I really don't want to remove this feature.

My game Weebish Mines is a platformer / Metroidvania that's very influenced by the old NES classic "Legacy of the Wizard". Anyhow all's well with how I'm handling the dark effect / torch areas in the game normally but after I added the effect to an entire game area I'm noticing a lot of slowdown.

Each 'tile' or whatever (though techincally it's not really tile-based) is a black 16 x 16 active object that exists on top of everything. I'm running a fast loop through the # of black tiles that sets their flag 0's to *off* and then if any are overlapping the guy's torch it sets that flag 0 to *on*. Last if any flag 0 is *on* it makes that black tile invisible and we get the effect that's seen here in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sNco4rbSqY

(Sorry I forgot how to embed a youtube video here)

I thought at first it might just be the fastloop process for these now that there's a lot of them however upon disabling the fastloop completely I'm still getting the slowdown. So since I figured maybe it had something to do with the amount of active objects on the screen I tried increasing the # of objects at runtime from 1000 to 2500 and then 5000 for laughs but the slowdown still remains.

Sorry, I hope this is clear enough. I don't have HWA or even know how it'd work with this if I could. Any tips for solving my problem please? I'm using vanilla MMF2, a slightly older build than the current one- I just don't know what build it is right now (254, 255?)

Thank you!!

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HWA is only available in the newer builds. You should really try the latest version, HWA really makes a difference. After doing that, simply change the display mode to be "Direct3D9", and your game will use HWA. Also, instead of using a fastloop to loop through objects, you should try the ForEach object (as soon as the download link is back, that is, since the site where you download it from is down as of now (alternatively, I could potentially upload my copy of the ForEach object so you can download it before then)).

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Originally Posted by happygreenfrog

HWA is only available in the newer builds. You should really try the latest version, HWA really makes a difference. After doing that, simply change the display mode to be "Direct3D9", and your game will use HWA. Also, instead of using a fastloop to loop through objects, you should try the ForEach object (as soon as the download link is back, that is, since the site where you download it from is down as of now (alternatively, I could potentially upload my copy of the ForEach object so you can download it before then)).

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I'll download the current build of MMF2 now and start using it later today. The main reason why I haven't yet is when I made the jump from MMF1.5 to MMF2 a lot of things that should have worked with MMF2 didn't and it caused huge problems that took awhile to fix. I guess I just don't want to have to go back and fix a bunch of stuff that already works with my old build :)

So do you think HWA might solve the problem? I've heard of it of course but I'm not sure on what it does exactly. Do you have to have a really good computer in order to have a game that can run using it? The main computer I make my stuff on isn't connected to the internet ever to avoid getting viruses and etc and it's maybe 5 years old or so.

And what's ForEach? I finally started learning how to correctly use fastloops lol.

Thank you for your reply!

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Originally Posted by Del_Duio

I'll download the current build of MMF2 now and start using it later today. The main reason why I haven't yet is when I made the jump from MMF1.5 to MMF2 a lot of things that should have worked with MMF2 didn't and it caused huge problems that took awhile to fix. I guess I just don't want to have to go back and fix a bunch of stuff that already works with my old build :)

So do you think HWA might solve the problem? I've heard of it of course but I'm not sure on what it does exactly. Do you have to have a really good computer in order to have a game that can run using it? The main computer I make my stuff on isn't connected to the internet ever to avoid getting viruses and etc and it's maybe 5 years old or so.

And what's ForEach? I finally started learning how to correctly use fastloops lol.

Thank you for your reply!

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To use HWA, you just have to have a computer with a graphics card, it doesn't have to be good at all (the laptop that I'm using being a good case-in-point). HWA just uses the graphics card for drawing things instead of the CPU, which makes the CPU have a much lighter load. ForEach is an extension available for MMF2, it's basically a fastloop for objects (it loops through each instance of an object, and it's a lot faster than a fastloop).

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Originally Posted by happygreenfrog

To use HWA, you just have to have a computer with a graphics card, it doesn't have to be good at all (the laptop that I'm using being a good case-in-point). HWA just uses the graphics card for drawing things instead of the CPU, which makes the CPU have a much lighter load. ForEach is an extension available for MMF2, it's basically a fastloop for objects (it loops through each instance of an object, and it's a lot faster than a fastloop).

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Thank you, that's very helpful info!

I've scoured the internet and all roads to that ForEach object seem to lead back to a link that's no longer valid. Is it included in 256 build do you know?

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Originally Posted by Del_Duio

Thank you, that's very helpful info!

I've scoured the internet and all roads to that ForEach object seem to lead back to a link that's no longer valid. Is it included in 256 build do you know?

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I don't think it is, but someone who has it could put their copy of it in a ZIP file and upload it here for you. :)

Well, until that happy day I'm going to give the new build's HWA a shot and see if that fixes the currrent issue.
Thanks a

Del_Duio - I'm pretty sure you don't need any kind of looping as long as all your black tiles are duplicates (not clones) of the same object. Try this:

Always - Show Black Tile
If Torch is overlapping Black Tile - Make Black Tile Invisible

Blaaaaaaah..

I installed build 257.12 and using Direct3D8 it worked and solved the slowdown up until I killed a bat where it immediately crashed (the program tries to create a blood splash and change the scale a bit, nothing fancy). Worse, with this new build MMF2 crashed 4 times in the span of 15 minutes just when I tried to scroll around the frame at design time! Any idea if that's a common occurence with the new build or why that might be happening?

Moew info: My game's running at 47-50 FPS normally until I move the guy in the center of the frame and it starts scrolling, where it dips down to 32 FPS. All the black tiles are copies and not clones, and it HAS to have something to do with the amount of objects and not the fast loops as a last ditch effort I deleted the whole fast loop event group and the slowdown was still there while running the standard display.

So I've had to revert back to Standard display as Direct3D9 (suggested above and what I tried first) made my graphics all distorted and blurry.

I have 512RAM and the crap Dell standard factory graphics and sound card. Which might mean I have no graphics card at all, who knows? Doesn't / shouldn't MMF2 auto shut off the HWA if it can't be used by the end user? I mean how do you guys handle your games that have HWA in them? Won't it crash a lot for people without graphic cards?

Sorry if my terminology's all wrong!

Hey, man. Why don't you try using the textblitter object instead? Just make it pretty big and have it have 32x32 black boxes as characters (you only need 2 characters: empty and black). You can use the callback function to isolate the specific character in an x,y region where your player is, relative to the textblitter's x,y positions, and max that character's semitransparency. I've never done it, but it should be pretty simple, as callbacks are extension-based loops. Using a bunch of actives without HWA in a big frame does probably cause a big slowdown.

I hope a guy called Fifth sees this, as he's bent that extension to fit similar circumstances with awesome results.

Alternatively, doing what AyreGuitar suggests is a good idea, but if you go that way don't use overlapping conditions. Compare regions/alterable values instead: always set each black box's alt value A to their own grid coordinates (ie. (x/32*1000)+(y/32)), and then compare that value to the player's (ie. value A of black box = (player's x/32*1000)+(player's y/32) -> make black box invisible. Just remember to add an always condition before this condition that makes the black boxes visible. MMF's object selection loops are much faster than fastloops.

That game's looking nice, by the way :)

How many of those black squares do you have? I notice that the screen scrolls, so I hope you don't have them covering the entire frame, because you only need enough to cover just the visible area (looks to be approx. 11 x 7 = 77 tiles total, which shouldn't be enough to cause any slowdown at all, even without HWA).

eg. http://sdrv.ms/1fZJmuW

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Originally Posted by MuddyMole

How many of those black square objects do you have? I notice that the screen scrolls, so I hope you don't have enough of them to cover the entire frame, because you only need enough to cover just the visible area (looks to be approx. 11 x 7 = 77 tiles total, which should not be enough to cause any slowdown at all).

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I have approx. 220 in the new area alone, and much less in 2 separate smaller areas elsewhere on the map. I have the black tiles stuck to their spot on the map though it's not like they're always covering the total visible area. I don't see how I could handle doing it the way that I think you're talking about though, since only certain spots on the map should be in darkness (and you can see other adjacent areas all at once in this one).

Just as an FYI, chances are, the reason HWA is crashing the editor is because you have it set to use HWA in the editor (it's defaultly set that way, and it actually can cause issues if you are using quick backdrops (that's one thing that could make it have issues, anyway)), so, if you go to the preferences and turn that off, then you should be able to use Direct3D9 just fine (BTW, chances are, the reason everything looks blurry in Direct3D9 is because of the menu bar. If you turn it off, then it should work fine (if it doesn't fix it, then go ahead and use Direct3D8, but that's not going to support as many HWA-exclusive features, and it might not be as fast)).

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Originally Posted by Del_Duio

I have approx. 220 in the new area alone, and much less in 2 separate smaller areas elsewhere on the map. I have the black tiles stuck to their spot on the map though it's not like they're always covering the total visible area. I don't see how I could handle doing it the way that I think you're talking about though, since only certain spots on the map should be in darkness (and you can see other adjacent areas all at once in this one).

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If you're sensible, you're already loading all the map tiles from an array - you just need that array to contain an extra value for each tile, to say if it's in light or darkness.

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Originally Posted by Alonso

Hey, man. Why don't you try using the textblitter object instead? Just make it pretty big and have it have 32x32 black boxes as characters (you only need 2 characters: empty and black). You can use the callback function to isolate the specific character in an x,y region where your player is, relative to the textblitter's x,y positions, and max that character's semitransparency. I've never done it, but it should be pretty simple, as callbacks are extension-based loops. Using a bunch of actives without HWA in a big frame does probably cause a big slowdown.

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That sounds interesting, I'm not positive on how to accomplish this though. The only time I ever use / used the textblitter is for straight text stuff.

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Originally Posted by Alonso

I hope a guy called Fifth sees this, as he's bent that extension to fit similar circumstances with awesome results.

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Me too!

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Originally Posted by Alonso

Alternatively, doing what AyreGuitar suggests is a good idea, but if you go that way don't use overlapping conditions. Compare regions/alterable values instead: always set each black box's alt value A to their own grid coordinates (ie. (x/32*1000)+(y/32)), and then compare that value to the player's (ie. value A of black box = (player's x/32*1000)+(player's y/32) -> make black box invisible. Just remember to add an always condition before this condition that makes the black boxes visible. MMF's object selection loops are much faster than fastloops.

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I think the problem's more with the amount of black tiles themselves over the fastloop but this is a good idea. I'm doing something similar in the game with the emergency ladder items that finds out the nearest closest 'tile' relative to the characters' X/Y position since ladders can't be built between spots and be off even by 1 pixel or giant explosions will occur!

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Originally Posted by Alonso

That game's looking nice, by the way :)

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Thanks, buddy! I'm trying very hard on this one to make the gameplay as good as I can and not just focusing on the graphics mostly.

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Originally Posted by MuddyMole

If you're sensible, you're already loading all the map tiles from an array - you just need that array to contain an extra value for each tile, to say if it's in light or darkness.

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I'm not sensible at all lol!

Actually it's not tile-based like most games like this are. What I'm doing is I made a gigantic png file (1600 x 1600 pixels or so) and drew a bunch of orange and purple squares on it. Then I'm going back by hand and drawing / copying - pasting the walls and etc over those existing squares to make one giant backdrop for the collision (and another giant .png file underneath that layer for the background walls, grass, etc.)

From there, I'm using active objects for the barrels, treasures, enemies, and destructible dirt squares.

I don't know if it's the best way but aside from this slowdown hiccup it works pretty well so far :)

edit: Here's what I mean, it's a shot of the giant png I have for the map so far. As seen from space or something.

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Originally Posted by happygreenfrog

Just as an FYI, chances are, the reason HWA is crashing the editor is because you have it set to use HWA in the editor (it's defaultly set that way, and it actually can cause issues if you are using quick backdrops (that's one thing that could make it have issues, anyway)), so, if you go to the preferences and turn that off, then you should be able to use Direct3D9 just fine (BTW, chances are, the reason everything looks blurry in Direct3D9 is because of the menu bar. If you turn it off, then it should work fine (if it doesn't fix it, then go ahead and use Direct3D8, but that's not going to support as many HWA-exclusive features, and it might not be as fast)).

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DUDE!

That's got to be it! I noticed right away that all my visual / layout prefences for the editor were changed around after I installed the new build. Woo hoo I can't wait to turn that sucker back to normal ASAP.

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Originally Posted by Del_Duio

DUDE!

That's got to be it! I noticed right away that all my visual / layout prefences for the editor were changed around after I installed the new build. Woo hoo I can't wait to turn that sucker back to normal ASAP.

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Okay this 100% solved the editor crash issue so a VERY BIG THANKS for this help!

Now here's the thing- Direct3D8 solves the speed issue with the black frames but again whenever I go to kill an enemy or destroy a barrel it causes an immediate crash. I've read a bit how the new 3D modes don't support some ink effects (or they're changed around in the editor or something) and whenever the character or an enemy / destructible gets hit it changes the effect to inverted to do a small flashing bit.

Could that be what's causing all the crashes, that ink effect? And if so, is there a way to still accomplish the same thing using what 3D8 (or 3D9) can support now?

Use D3D9 not 8. And yes, anything that can be done with an ink effect can be done using a pixelshader effect.

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Originally Posted by MuddyMole

Use D3D9 not 8. And yes, anything that can be done with an ink effect can be done using a pixelshader effect.

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Hi Sketchy!

The only reason I wanted to use 8 over 9 is while using 9 it's making my graphics very blurry. I figured out why though- it's because I'm using the window control object to resize my graphics to a slightly bigger size so the whole thing's not 160 x 100 (or whatever the exact size is, it's something like that). I tried checking and unchecking different display options with 3D9 because I wanted it to work- there was no slowdown and breaking barrels or killing enemies didn't crash the game- but it just looked way too blurry and terrible :(

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Originally Posted by Del_Duio

Hi Sketchy!

The only reason I wanted to use 8 over 9 is while using 9 it's making my graphics very blurry. I figured out why though- it's because I'm using the window control object to resize my graphics to a slightly bigger size so the whole thing's not 160 x 100 (or whatever the exact size is, it's something like that). I tried checking and unchecking different display options with 3D9 because I wanted it to work- there was no slowdown and breaking barrels or killing enemies didn't crash the game- but it just looked way too blurry and terrible :(

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Good that you figured it out! Disabling "anti-aliasing while resizing" should fix the issue without getting rid of the windows control object, BTW.

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Originally Posted by happygreenfrog

Good that you figured it out! Disabling "anti-aliasing while resizing" should fix the issue without getting rid of the windows control object, BTW.

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I'm almost positive tthe anti-aliasing check box isn't checked though, hmmm.

I do have one piece of good news: I just tried the .exe build that uses 3D8 on another, slightly more recent computer and there's no crashes upon killing things. In fact the inverted ink effects work too, and there's 0 slowdown. What I'll have to do is probably switch it to standard display for my build computer so I can test it even though it has slowdown, and then build the thing w/ 3D8 so the eventual end users will be able to play it as it was meant to be played.

The only foreseeable issue with that of course would be not everyone will be able to play the game if they have a bare-bones computer circa 2005 or so.

Here's a new video showing the speed it's supposed to be played as, along with the new gun and umbrella items:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9dt9...dtwe9KLrI4w_3A

Hi guys, just a quick update on this but I was able to fix the slowdown and thought sharing how might help someone in the future.

It turns out the slowdown was an overall performance issue with my older computer and not necessarily tied into the black active objects (though when added it must've put MMF at that threshold which produced the slowdown.)

I had a fastloop always going through all the game's collectible qualifier items that added gravity to them if they needed it. Example: When you break a barrel or a dirt wall and a gem popped out it'd make it fall to the ground. Anyhow I tried taking out those loops and just have a normal "If qualifier isn't overlapping the background" event to add the gravity instead and not only does it work / look exactly the same I'd say 90% of the slowdown is completely gone now :D

I know people here are probably using the ForEach object for their projects but it's still not available on that website. Could somebody please upload their ForEach extension and e-mail / PM me the link please? I'd like to give it a go and if using fastloops is causing such performance havoc I probably should try to use ForEach instances instead.

Thanks so much and have a good one!

Look in the MMF2 Owners Lounge.

I did not include the .dat file for the SWF exporter.

Marv

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Originally Posted by Del_Duio

I'm not sensible at all lol!

Actually it's not tile-based like most games like this are. What I'm doing is I made a gigantic png file (1600 x 1600 pixels or so) and drew a bunch of orange and purple squares on it. Then I'm going back by hand and drawing / copying - pasting the walls and etc over those existing squares to make one giant backdrop for the collision (and another giant .png file underneath that layer for the background walls, grass, etc.)

From there, I'm using active objects for the barrels, treasures, enemies, and destructible dirt squares.

I don't know if it's the best way but aside from this slowdown hiccup it works pretty well so far :)

edit: Here's what I mean, it's a shot of the giant png I have for the map so far. As seen from space or something.

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Holy cow man... you really need to learn about using arrays for tilemapping.

Look at my example in my signature

Oh no, it's not that I can't use arrays for tiled games it's just for this one I don't want to.

Your example is great BTW, good job!