Optimizing for speed

[The_Alee]

Hi there,

I'm making a game at 1024x768 resolution. I'm using scrolling and im looking to get maximum FPS at all times.

Its set to 50fps and using DirectX+Vram (is vsync a good idea too for max fps?).

It looks like ill have 2 GFX options, one with small amount of anti aliasing/alpha and one without. Is there an easier way to make a version with no alpha than just making alternate graphics with no alpha channels? Is there a setting or anything?

Also, I need very large levels. Is there an easy way to make everything move around the player, rather than have a huge frame? Because then the levels would have no edge, which is ideal for me.

Thanks for reading.
-Alex

[LazyCoder]

If you want it to look good, use 60fps, that's about where motion looks its smoothest.

Use vsync as well, but I wouldn't recommend using directx or vram. They'll slow you're game down, or at least they always have for me.

Don't use the antialiasing option. Just use alpha channels instead. Frankly I don't know what the practical use for the antialiasing option is. It's slow, and doesn't make things look any better. Just make two sets of graphics for your game, with and without alpha channels. I did a few tests, and alpha channels aren't all that much slower than transparent color unless the images are big and/or animated.

Well what I'm doing is I'm making a level editor for my game, just for my own use, then I load all the data into one frame which is the size of the screen, then I just have 2 counters for the player's coordinates, and I just have it so the player is always centered, or close to it or whatever. But using that method means you can't use any built in movements. Well I guess you could, but it wouldn't be easy.

Oh I just remembered, about VSync. Have an option in the options menu to turn it on or off. Have it off by default.

[Anders]

Actually I think Yves said that sprites with alpha channels are faster than normal sprites with anti-aliasing.

[Yves]

1. There is no option to disable the alpha channels, sorry.

2. You can set the virtual width & height to -1 in the frame properties if you want an (almost) unlimited scrolling without modifying the frame size.

Lazycoder: you are wrong, in DirectX mode alpha channels are slower than a simple transparent color.

Andos: yes, sprites with alpha channels are much faster than sprites with the anti-aliasing option.

Yves.

[integrality]

Im facing these problems (and many related others) as well, however I've decided to keep working and testing my game as it is atm waiting for future hardware acceleration that should come after vitalize4, so dont worry, as far I know is it already in plans to make everything run smoother

[The_Alee]

Thanks guys, and Yves, i wasn't aware of this feature. This is incredibly useful for me .

Hardware acceleration sounds awesome. But It will probably be about 6 months (right?) so I can't really rely on that :P.

[MrMan]

You've been at it 4 years, what's another 6 months or so?

[stuckboy]

I don't mean to be unhelpful, but at a resolution of 1024x768, I don't think anti aliasing your sprites would really improve visual quality very much, so most people would just leave it off anyway.

If you want to optimise your app your usually better off making it so the user can adjust the quality of special effects (like explosion effects) in your game.

For example, hi quality explosions could create whole bunch of active objects that move randomly and then turn into alphachannel smoke. Medium could be the same but with no smoke, and low quality could just be an animated explosion.

[The_Alee]

MrMan : Hehe yeah i guess!

Stuckboy: Yeah, the thing is, even a small amount of alpha channel used with directx+vram slows things right down i think. But yes, I've been making sure i give the user options for graphics all the way through. But I'm just thinking that if only we had hardware acceleration, everything would be running like a dream 24/7

Also. I'm thinking of making all my menus sub apps, to keep things clean. And I want to make an inventory with little images of each thing, but not base the inventory on amount of spaces but total weight used. So i'd need it to scroll. The best way in my opinion would be to use a sub-app that just scrolls. But would that slows things down alot? I mean using sub apps at all? And what about small amount of scrolling in the sub app?

Thanks

[James]

If you want to keep the speed up, tick the "Machine-independent speed" box. This will make it skip any frames that would take a long time to redraw and keep the game running fast at all times.